


living legends (burning through nights, paying the price)

by mfalfanclub



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Action, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fighting, Fluff, Hospital Scenes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Strangers to Lovers, Superheroes, Superpowers, but not in the main ship, not darker than a pg-13 thriller movie though i think??, nurse yuta, please read ch 1 notes and have a great time, red velvet features pretty heavily, there are more characters i didn't tag bc i didn't want to give away their identities!, this was supposed to be a fun fic but the plot got dark, you might see characters who are way ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:34:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 72,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25806697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mfalfanclub/pseuds/mfalfanclub
Summary: As an ER nurse, Yuta rarely gets repeat patients. Anyone who comes in more than once typically either has a chronic condition or gets arrested. But Winwin, who shows up sporting a brand-new injury every time the city's mysterious masked crimefighters are spotted out and about, is anything but typical.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 115
Kudos: 186
Collections: Yuta Fic Fest 2019-2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thank you ten for the fic title

“Ling Winwin?”

Yuta looked up from the clipboard. The waiting room was quiet—typical of a Wednesday morning. He scanned across the six or seven faces. A few of them looked back at him nervously.

“Ling Winwin,” Yuta called again. He met the eyes of a man in the corner. The man’s arms were awkwardly draped over his lap and his gaze on Yuta was sharp. When Yuta looked at him, the man jumped a little and said, blinking, “Uh, me. That’s me.”

“Great. You can come with me, please.”

The man stood up, following Yuta through the swinging doors into the emergency room. His arms dangled a few inches out from his sides. He looked young. Maybe a little younger than Yuta. But was he taller than him? Maybe he only seemed young because his eyes were so big and wide. That, and his blond hair—made him look sort of soft.

“Forget your name out there or what?” said Yuta, trying to put the man at ease. Ling Winwin’s dark gaze flicked to Yuta. He didn’t smile.

“Here, please,” said Yuta, gesturing to room 40B. Winwin stepped inside, glancing around the room. Yuta shut the door behind them and sat down on his spinny stool. “You can sit on the bed. Or you can lie down if you want.”

Winwin was looking at the ceiling. Yuta swiveled around and said, “What’s up there? Spider?”

“No…there’s not anything.” Winwin’s eyes drifted to the TV, where the news channel was playing on mute, and then to the patient bed. He regarded it with uncertainty before gingerly sitting down. He was startlingly good-looking, even despite the way he dripped uneasiness. Maybe he didn’t like hospitals. Yuta took another glance at his paperwork. _Birth date:_ _28.10.1997_. So he was as young as he looked.

“My name’s Yuta,” Yuta said, letting the papers fall back into place. He stood up, pulling out the blood pressure monitor and heart rate clip. “I’m your nurse for today. All right if I call you Winwin?”

Winwin nodded warily.

“Great. Here’s what’s going to happen, Winwin. I’ll take your blood pressure and heart rate real quick, to make sure you’re stable. You’ll tell me about what’s wrong, I’ll do what I can for you, then we’ll get the doctor to fix you up. Sound good?”

“Yes,” said Winwin.

“Awesome. You’re here for burns on your arms, is that right?”

Winwin nodded again and offered up his arms, elbows locked in front of him. His arms were covered by long sleeves that were thickly wrinkled, like there were other layers of cloth beneath them.

“I’m going to take a look,” said Yuta. “Where exactly are the burns?”

“Forearms,” said Winwin, “near my elbows.” As Yuta gently rolled up his sleeves to reveal stained bandages underneath, Winwin said, “It’s worse on my right arm.”

“Okay,” said Yuta, pushing up Winwin’s sleeves and wrapping the blood pressure cuff around his arm above the bandages. They didn’t look great, he thought as he took Winwin’s blood pressure and heart rate. Jotting down numbers on his clipboard, he said, “How long has it been since you changed these bandages?”

Winwin’s mouth made a sheepish shape. “Um. Five days?”

“Five days?” said Yuta. “Is that when you got the burns? Five days ago?”

Winwin nodded, brows tightly knit and gaze fixed on Yuta’s gloved fingers unwrapping the bandages. “You’ve got to change bandages every day,” said Yuta, “to prevent infection. Can you tell me how you treated it when it happened?”

The skin under the bandages was angry red and tacky, peeling in places. Winwin averted his eyes. Yuta lifted the bandages off as smoothly as he could. Through gritted teeth, Winwin said, “At first I um…didn’t get a chance to treat it. Then I put ice on it. And then later I tried to wash it off but it kind of hurt.”

“Did you put anything on it before the bandages? Any ointment?” said Yuta, removing the bandages from Winwin’s other arm. Both arms were burned in more or less the size and shape of an iPhone, though the left was in considerably better shape.

“Yeah,” said Winwin, “some shea butter stuff.”

“Like lotion?”

“Mhm.”

“And this was five days ago?” said Yuta. Winwin nodded, his face lowered so much that his chin was almost touching his chest.

Yuta bundled up the bandages and threw them in the trash. “Why’d it take you so long to come in?”

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” said Winwin.

“So what made you decide it _was_ that bad?” said Yuta, standing up to open the cabinet over the sink.

“It started to hurt more.”

“It hurts more?” Yuta looked at him. “Does it hurt now?”

Winwin nodded again.

“Do me a favor,” said Yuta, “and rate the pain on a scale of one to ten. One being like, I don’t feel a thing, ten being like you can’t even think.”

“Um…” Winwin looked around the room again. “Three?”

Yuta raised his eyebrows. “Three? For that burn?”

Winwin hesitated. “Four?”

Yuta smiled a little. He brought down a pill bottle and a tub of ointment from the cabinet, then ran water into a plastic cup. “Okay. Did it hurt the first few days?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Winwin.

“Good.” Yuta handed the cup of water to Winwin, uncapping the pill bottle. “If it doesn’t hurt, that usually means you’ve burned your nerve endings right off, which would be worse. Here, take one of these. It’s a mid-strength pain reliever.”

Winwin looked at the pill closely before swallowing it. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” Yuta sat down on his stool, took Winwin’s hand and pulled his arm towards him. “This might sting, okay? Luckily for us, these only look like second-degree burns. Second-degree can be pretty bad, but you won’t need surgery. Unless you keep on caring for it badly, which, again, is going to get you on the highway to Infection City.”

“I was taking care of it badly?” said Winwin.

Something about the way he said it made Yuta grin. “It’s not your fault. But you should have talked to a doctor. We don’t recommend applying ice or very cold water to burns. It lowers your body temperature, so your body has a harder time doing damage control. And when you’re dressing the wound, you’d want some antibiotic ointment. Lotion’s no good, it can increase the risk of infection.”

“It said soothing for severe skin,” said Winwin absently.

Yuta tried not to laugh. “Sounds like they meant severe dry skin.”

“Oh.”

Yuta finished putting ointment onto Winwin’s left arm and reached for his right. Winwin placed his palm face-up in Yuta’s. It curled into a fist when Yuta dabbed ointment on the blistering skin.

“Hurt?” said Yuta.

Winwin shrugged. A moment later he nodded.

“You’re doing great,” said Yuta. He continued to spread ointment across the burn. Winwin’s fist was clenched like a rock in Yuta’s hand, so tight that his knuckles were white.

“You’re not from Neo City, are you,” said Yuta to distract him from the pain.

Winwin’s eyes met Yuta’s and he shook his head.

Yuta wanted to ask where he was from, but figured personal questions would only put the guy more on edge. “Neither am I.”

Winwin’s head tilted a degree. “No?”

“Nope. I was born on the mainland,” Yuta said. He pulled Winwin’s arm a little closer. “Grew up in Dongbangsingi, went to school in Soshi. I moved here for nursing school thinking I’d go back to Soshi afterwards and, well, here I am on the island in Neo City still.”

“Why’d you stay?” said Winwin.

Yuta said, “Mostly the great Soshi food,” finally getting Winwin to smile. “Are you going to tell me how you managed to get these?” he added, laying Winwin’s arm on his knee and snapping his rubber gloves off.

“I went camping out of town this weekend,” said Winwin, “and fell in the campfire.”

“You fell in the campfire,” said Yuta, folding his arms.

Winwin nodded another time.

“But your hands are fine,” said Yuta.

Winwin studied his flawless palms. “Oh, it wasn’t that kind of…I didn’t fall on my hands.”

Yuta stood up with the clipboard under his arm and pointed at the TV. “You sure you weren’t at the Opus Building on Saturday when it caught fire?”

Winwin turned to the TV, where a muted news anchor was gesticulating beside the famous clip of the squat black Opus Building pouring smoke into the sunless dawn. The clip replayed over a red breaking news banner that read, “ _OFFICIALS SAY OPUS BUILDING FIRE DAMAGES TOTAL ABOUT 80 MILLION WON_.” Winwin read the headline and then looked back at Yuta expressionlessly.

“Ha,” said Yuta after a second, “joke.”

Winwin gave an unamused half-smile. Yuta picked up the clipboard. “Okay, I’m going to send Dr. Bae in to see you. Hang tight and she’ll be here in a few minutes, all right? Your burns should heal on their own if you follow her instructions.”

“Thank you,” said Winwin as Yuta pulled open the door.

“Stay out of the campfires from now on,” said Yuta, winking over his shoulder. Winwin’s lips turned up into a real smile for the second time. Yuta shut the door.

“What are you so happy about?” said Irene, reaching for clipboard that Yuta held out to her when he found her down the hall.

“Huh?” Yuta realized he was grinning like a dimwit. “Oh. Just talked to this funny little guy. There was something kind of weird about him...”

“If you’re about to regale me with another riveting tale of your dubious escapades on Grindr, I’d love to hear it at a time that is not right now,” said Irene, raising the glasses on the chain around her neck to look through the paperwork. “Who am I seeing?”

“No—what? The patient is the funny guy,” said Yuta. “The funny guy is who you’re seeing. You know what, I think maybe you’re jealous of my dubious Grindr escapades, have you ever considered that, huh, Doctor Happily-Married-and-Incredibly-Successful-at-a-Young-Age Bae?”

“Blood pressure looks kind of low,” said Irene, ignoring him. “Think it’s just because he’s fit?”

“He’s only like 23, so maybe. Either way he’s stable,” said Yuta.

“Okay. Thanks.” She disappeared around the corner with the clipboard tucked into her white coat.

Yuta went back to the management desk, where he found Taeyong handing Mark his next assignment. “9-year-old with a Lego up his nose,” Taeyong was saying.

“Nice,” said Mark, taking the clipboard.

“Lego nose!” said Yuta, stopping in front of the desk. “I saw two separate kids with the exact same affliction last month. Actually I’m little concerned it’s becoming an epidemic.”

“Makes me feel a little better to see a case of Lego nose,” said Taeyong, typing at his keyboard. “At least if they’re playing with Legos, then they’re not playing with phones.”

Mark snorted. “How old are you, forty?”

“He’s right, young whippersnapper,” said Yuta. “Even the most advanced case of Lego nose would be significantly less debilitating than going blind, if you can believe that!”

“Why are you talking like that?” said Mark without looking up from his paperwork.

“I don’t know. I think because I’m bored. Taeyong, what have you got for me? Please be something juicy,” said Yuta. He took a hard candy from the jar on the counter. Taeyong scowled, slapped at his hand, and missed. Yuta grinned and shimmied off the wrapper.

“If you keep taking thirty candies a day, then we just won’t have candy anymore, do you want that?” said Taeyong.

Mark’s eyes widened. “No! Don’t take away the candy! Yuta, stop taking extra candy!”

“I don’t know why you guys are so obsessed with these, they’re not even that good,” said Taeyong, returning to the papers on the desk.

“Are you kidding me?” said Mark. “These things are the—”

“Yuta, here’s your next up,” said Taeyong, clipping some papers onto a clipboard. “Male, 56. Stomachache.”

“Stomachache,” said Yuta.

“Mm. His stomach hurts,” Taeyong read from the clipboard, “quote, ‘ _like something is very wrong_ ,’ unquote.”

Yuta stuck the wrapper in his pocket and rolled the candy around his mouth. “You know, sometimes I really wish this city were a little less peaceful.”

Mark rolled his eyes while Taeyong leaned forward with an appalled face. “Yuta!” said Taeyong. “That is the _single_ most irresponsible remark I have ever heard you make about working here!”

“The single most irresponsible Mark,” said Yuta, grabbing for the clipboard over the counter.

Taeyong held it out of his reach. “And you literally asked me last week if you could clean a laceration with ammonia instead of iodine!”

Yuta groaned. “It was a joke. The guy was a raging homophobe.”

“I know,” said Taeyong, “that’s why I ranked this comment as slightly worse than that one.”

“Come on, give me stomachache guy. _Give_ —” Yuta snatched the clipboard from Taeyong’s hands and stepped away, peering at the paperwork. “And Mark was right, these candies are the shit. Your tongue just sucks.”

“Blehblelbleh,” mimicked Taeyong in Yuta’s tone.

“A fifty-year old with a stomachache. The mundanity,” Yuta said to Mark, following him to the front. “It’s almost barbaric.”

“What, all the chaos at asscrack o’clock in the morning on Saturday wasn’t enough for you?”

“Yeah, that’ll probably be the last time something interesting happens in this city for the next six years,” Yuta said, glancing over his shoulder at the closed door of room 40B.

“You’re literally asking for our job to be harder,” said Mark. “Couldn’t be me.”

“Come on, it’s not like I want people to be seriously wounded,” Yuta whispered as they reached the end of the hallway. “I just want something to shake up the usual routine. A semi-violent crime. A bank robbery or two.”

“Yeah,” said Mark, “careful what you wish for,” and pushed open the waiting room door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hellooooo thank you for taking a look at living legends!! please quickly skim over this note before proceeding <3
> 
> first of all thank you SOOO MUCH to the organizers, prompters, and other writers of yuta fic fest for making this fic possible!! it wouldn't be here without them! i chose prompt #4, thank you so much to my prompter and i hope you have fun reading!!
> 
> there are a whooole lot of potential triggers in here that i didn't mention in the tags, so what i'm gonna do is i'm going to include a list of specific warnings for the next chapter at the end of each chapter! that way anyone who wants to avoid light spoilers can bypass them easily, and anyone who is keeping an eye out for a particular trigger can scan for it. i'll list chapter 2's warnings now:
> 
> chapter 2 potential triggers: fire, cut, blood, anesthetic needle, stitches
> 
> most potential triggers make pretty minor appearances, but i'll say now that you're gonna see fire and mentions of blood throughout the fic so if either of those seriously bother you, this might not be the fic for you! there's also some emotional manipulation/trauma that comes into play in the plot?? again nothing hugely drastic but feel free to steer clear if those are not your cup of tea
> 
> that said i do want to emphasize that there is very little graphic detail written into the fic with regard to violence & injuries! only enough detail to make it clear what was going on basically lol
> 
> uhh i've never written an action-y fic before or any kind of fic that wasn't slice of life frankly so please forgive if it's all over the place? i did my best to keep the plot under control so let's see if i managed to do that or not! it does get really angsty and dramatic but it's worth it for the action and romance or something. i also didn't love writing ooc but the fic needed some villainry oh well!
> 
> i did mention this briefly in the tags, but there are more characters and ships i didn't tag who will surface by the end of the fic so keep an eye out for them!
> 
> LAST THING this is very important! NOTHING in the plot of this fic was inspired by or based off any real life events! no parallels between this story and world politics, or for that matter fandom politics, were intended. i thought it would be funny to write a superhero story set in a fictional city called neo city in a fictional country called esem so i did! neo city is basically just seoul mashed up with manhattan and like gotham city or something, when you see a reference to nct's discography or to other sm groups in the geography of the place just look away, i was entertaining myself there's no thematic or metaphorical connection to real life
> 
> yes okay that is all for now! thank you for taking the time to read through this! going forward it's not necessary to check the notes unless you're on the lookout for tws. hope you enjoy the fic!!!


	2. Chapter 2

“Okay,” said Taeyong, “do you have enough money?”

Mark looked down at the blue and red bills in his hand. “Uh…uhh…hang on…just a…”

“You don’t,” said Taeyong.

“Wait, I do, I can sell Hawaii,” said Mark.

“Even if you do, you won’t have enough money to pay him,” said Yuta.

“Yes I…! Oh.”

“Okay,” said Taeyong, neatly assembling his money and deeds, “so I win, again.”

“Why do we even play this game?” Mark said. “ _Blue Marble_ sucks.”

“Can I flip the board?” said Yuta.

“You only think it sucks because you’re bad at it,” said Taeyong with a sweet smile.

“Nuh uh! _Monopoly_ is way better…”

“You guys,” said Jaehyun, who had declared bankruptcy an hour ago and was curled into the corner of the couch looking at his phone, “have you seen this thing about the robbery?”

“Robbery?” said Mark, turning around.

“I’m flipping the board,” said Yuta.

“Yeah, the convenience store that got robbed last week,” said Taeyong, picking up his paper plate streaked with pizza grease and moving it out of Yuta’s way.

“Oh, I thought the police said that nothing actually happened,” said Mark as Yuta slipped fingertips under the board and flung it into the air, sending paper and tiny houses flying.

“What? Wait, no,” said Jaehyun.

“Yeah,” Yuta said, “because there was no one on the security cameras. The owner of the store made it up.”

“Yeah, right,” said Mark, helping Yuta gather the scattered game pieces.

“Really? There was no one on the security cameras?” said Taeyong.

“Yeah, for real,” said Mark.

“No,” said Jaehyun, “that’s not what I’m talking about. This happened today. And there are videos of these weird people in masks.”

“Masks?” said Mark and Taeyong.

“Yeah. Like, not normal filter masks. Masks that cover their eyes and mouths.”

“The fuck?” said Yuta.

“Come here,” said Jaehyun, beckoning. Yuta followed Taeyong behind the couch while Mark sat down and put his elbow on Jaehyun’s shoulder. Together their heads bent over the phone as he clicked on a video with several thousand retweets and put up the volume. There was shouting. The camera shook heavily, like the person holding it was running.

“They’re in a store?” said Mark.

“Yeah, shh,” said Jaehyun.

The white gleam of the artificial lights blurred and then the camera slowed at the end of an aisle. “ _Wait, stay here_ ,” someone whispered. The camera was lifted over a row of shelves.

“Holy shit!” said Yuta.

“What in the fuck?” Taeyong said.

Across the convenience store, a middle-aged man behind the counter was gaping at someone in a black ski mask, also behind the counter, who was in turn being shouted at across the counter by someone with their back to the camera. The person in the ski mask dropped out of sight, as if to the ground. The other person lunged for them. A half second later there was the flash of something shiny through the air, like metal, and then a screeching bang. Mark jumped. Several people screamed.

“ _Get down, get down_ ,” said a close voice.

“ _I am down,_ ” said the girl behind the camera, her phone bobbing. Someone with their face covered—was it the ski mask guy?—darted past the terrified cashier again, closely followed by at least two darkly dressed figures. The video ended there and looped to the beginning.

“How many of them were there?” said Mark. “Like three?”

“People are saying,” said Jaehyun, scrolling down the thread. “But they weren’t all together, like, some of them were fighting each other.”

“Drugs,” said Yuta. “Mafia.”

“Do you think so?” Mark said.

“Look at this,” said Jaehyun, bringing up another video, this one facing the door from a vantage point low to the ground. There were more voices in this one, and feet pounding past the camera as the shelves shuddered—“ _Stop!_ ” “ _I can’t find him_ —” “ _Hang on!_ ” and then another voice, deep and authoritative, rang out, “ _Everyone stay calm and don’t move_.” A figure flickered past the bright doorway, gone in a blink as if they were sprinting. “ _Fire_ ,” someone said, and then the single word rose to a roar: “ _Fire!_ ” “ _Fire!_ ” People swarmed the exit. A second later the video was over.

“Jesus,” said Yuta.

“Was everyone okay?” said Mark.

“Yeah,” said Taeyong, who had taken out his own phone. “Here. ‘ _No one harmed in Dream Quarter robbery. Authorities have yet to determine whether fire at Dream Quarter convenience store is accidental or linked to the attempted robbery_.’”

“Attempted robbery?” said Mark.

“Yeah,” said Taeyong. He peered closer with narrowed eyes. “It says the thief left the money behind.”

“This girl says there were at least four different people in masks,” said Jaehyun. “I mean the girl from the first video. This other guy is saying five. He says they were doing magic shit.”

“What magic shit?” said Taeyong.

“Like superheroes?” said Mark excitedly.

“I guess. He says he saw one guy run really fast and another guy move a whole shelf of ramen but, like, barely trying.”

“So magical,” said Yuta.

“Taeyong, what does the article say?”

“ _Six witnesses including the storeowner were interviewed about the incident. The composite of their testimonies suggests that four to five unidentified suspects in masks appeared at the site of the attempted robbery today. It remains unclear whether these individuals worked as a group or separately. The storeowner, who has asked to remain anonymous, told police that he was doing work behind the counter when he noticed a tall masked male opposite him, shouting. He believed the male was shouting at him, until he noticed another masked person behind the counter with him, taking money from the open cash register. He says he did not hear or see the second individual until the shouting began_.”

Mark cackled. “This guy was getting robbed while he was standing _right there?_ ”

“I told you,” said Yuta, “everyone in this town is fucking dull in the head.”

“ _According to witnesses, the four to five individuals became involved in a conflict, pushing shelves and throwing heavy objects_ ,” Taeyong read. “ _Two witnesses believe that some of the individuals were trying to stop the would-be thief. Three of the masked individuals left the store and shortly after, witnesses noticed flames behind the counter. They vacated the premises. Authorities arrived soon enough to contain the fire, but all of the suspects appear to have left the surrounding area by that point_.”

“I want to see a video of the magic superpowers,” said Mark.

“I can’t find one,” said Jaehyun. “I think the guy’s looney.”

“Well, Yuta,” said Taeyong, sitting cross-legged on the floor and reaching for the pizza box, “you got what you wished for.”

“What?” Yuta threw himself over the back of the couch and stuck his foot in Mark’s face, prompting a disgusted sound and a backhanded slap. “What the hell do you mean, what I wished for?”

“Remember last week? You said you wanted this city to be less peaceful,” said Taeyong, pushing up his glasses and leaning his head back to guide the corner of a pizza slice into his mouth.

“Yeah,” said Mark, “you were like, let’s have more semi-violent crime.”

Jaehyun laughed. “You said that?”

Yuta pulled a _Blue Marble_ gamepiece he’d accidentally sat on from underneath his butt and threw it at Taeyong’s face. It bounced off his shirt. “Christ. It was a joke. I just said I wanted things to be more exciting at work.”

“He said he wanted more semi-violent crime,” Taeyong assured Jaehyun.

“Some nurse you are,” said Jaehyun.

“AHH! I take it back! Okay? I don’t like crime. Crime is bad!” said Yuta. “Besides, it’s no fun if something crazy happens on my day off. Now I’m going to miss all the action at the ER and have to hear about it secondhand from Yeri tomorrow.”

“Nakamoto Yuta,” said Taeyong, raising the slice of pizza as if he were toasting. “The only ER nurse who actively wishes he were at work on his day off.”

“Don’t forget the part where he wishes for more patients to get hurt,” added Mark.

“I NEVER SAID THAT!”

“Well,” said Jaehyun as Yuta reached for Mark so he could yank him closer and beat him up, “let’s just hope that’s the last time we hear from those mafia dudes. I don’t feel like seeing their masks on my timeline again anytime soon.”

“Why?” said Taeyong.

“ _Why?_ They were scary,” said Jaehyun.

“Kind of sexy-scary, though,” said Taeyong.

Jaehyun nodded thoughtfully and Mark screamed, “IS ANYONE GOING TO HELP ME?” as Yuta chased him to the kitchen.

It was the next day when Winwin appeared in the emergency room for the second time. Yuta saw him out of his periphery while calling another patient back. Winwin was in the corner again, his eyes on Yuta. Winwin gave a small smile. Yuta tried to give him the exaggeratedly stern frown that he sometimes gave jokingly to return patients. Instead he couldn’t help but smile back.

“Is the file for Ling Winwin back here yet?” Yuta asked Taeyong after taking care of the previous patient’s discharge papers.

Taeyong clicked a couple times on his computer. “Yeah. He’s on Yeri’s rotation.”

“Switch him to mine,” said Yuta.

“Why? You know him?”

“Yeah, and he’s a hard nut to crack. Just switch him, he’ll be comfortable with me,” said Yuta.

“If you agree not to eat any more of my candy today.”

“Today?” said Yuta, pulling out his phone. “Fine. Whatever.”

Taeyong typed for a second and clicked again. The printer behind him shot out some papers and he assembled them on a clipboard to hand to Yuta. “Here,” said Taeyong, “go wild.”

Yeri emerged from one of the rooms as Yuta went down the hallway. “Thanks, Yerim, you little delight of a human being, you,” said Yuta.

“What did I do?” she said suspiciously.

“Nothing,” he said as she passed by him, holding out his arms. “Everything.”

She snapped her fingers. “Ah, I know. You stayed up all night to read another self-help book. This is, like, an exercise in mindfulness. No. Gratitude. Am I getting warmer?”

“No, you’re basically Elsa when she goes to the bottom of the magic river glacier,” he said cheerfully, leaning his back against the door so it swung open. She waved him away and he stepped into the waiting room. “Ling Winwin!”

Winwin stood up. Yuta looked him over. Outwardly he looked fine, aside from the characteristic air of unease. Yuta jerked his head. “Come on back.”

In the hallway Yuta said to him, “So, do you remember me? Because I remember you, Mr. Campfire Man.”

“Campfire Man,” Winwin repeated with a grimace.

“Didn’t take you long to hurry back here. Did you miss me that much?” said Yuta, pushing open the door to 40B.

“I got a cut,” said Winwin.

“Uh huh. I see that,” said Yuta, scanning the clipboard. “It’s on your hip?”

Winwin nodded, his mouth twisted a little. “Can I uh—lie down…?”

“Sure, of course. Get comfortable.” Yuta rummaged in the cabinet for the blood pressure monitor. “How are those burns doing?”

“Good,” said Winwin, lying coffin-style with his hands folded over his stomach. “They’re almost all better.”

“Great to hear.” Yuta started taking his vitals. “Any pain still?”

Winwin shook his head.

“Amazing. And you’re still on antibiotics, is that right?”

“I have three more days of them,” Winwin said.

“You’re almost done.” Yuta noted his vitals on the clipboard and then stepped back to the patient bed. “I’m going to take a look at the cut, okay? Mind showing me where it is?”

Winwin made an “mhm” noise and rolled up his shirt a couple inches. There was a nasty-looking bandage over Winwin’s left hip. Yuta peeled back a piece of tape at the edge of the bloody fabric.

“I’ve redressed it every day,” said Winwin.

Yuta grinned. “You’re learning, Campfire Man.”

“But it keeps on starting to bleed again,” he said, inhaling sharply when Yuta lifted up the bandage.

Yuta focused on maintaining a blank expression at the sight of the wound. It was in bad shape—several centimeters long, more of a slash than a cut, and leaking more colors than he preferred. “It’s great that you’ve been redressing it every day. But how many days have you had to redress?”

“Only one. Today,” said Winwin.

“So you got this yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“What time yesterday?”

“Uh…” Winwin blinked a few times. “Like…afternoon…?”

“You know, Campfire Man,” Yuta said, looking into his eyes seriously, “I’d _really_ appreciate it if you would come in as soon as you get hurt, like, right away, instead of waiting a hundred years to get it treated.”

Winwin looked back at him. “Do you nickname all your patients after the objects that inflicted their injuries?”

“Only my favorites,” said Yuta. “So you’ve had this bad boy for how long? 20 hours? 22?”

Winwin cleared his throat. “Oh uh. Does it matter? The exact hour?”

“Yeah,” said Yuta, “the doctor’s going to need to know how long it’s been open, to decide whether you’re getting stitches.”

Winwin chewed on his lip and said, “I guess around 20 hours,” looking down at the wound and then quickly glancing away.

“Okay.” Yuta pulled some things down from the cabinet. He didn’t want to ask Winwin what had happened, because he suspected the response would be a lie, the same way the campfire bit from the other day was almost definitely made up. “The lines here look pretty straight and clean. Whatever cut you must have been sharp. Like a straight-edged knife, maybe. That sound right?”

Winwin took in a breath, hesitated, and stared off into space while nodding.

“It was a knife?” said Yuta.

Winwin kept nodding. “Yes.”

“Who was holding the knife?” said Yuta.

“No one,” said Winwin quickly. “It was on the counter. Underneath a really heavy dish. And I walked into it.”

There was the lie. Yuta cleaned the cut gently, dabbing away fluid. “Uh huh. And how’d you clean it?”

Winwin took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “I didn’t?”

“Well,” said Yuta, “you’re lucky you’re already on antibiotics.” He wiped the skin around the wound clean. “The doctor you saw about your burns last week isn’t in today, so you’ll be seeing Dr. Kim.” He gathered up the trash and tossed it into the bin, then pulled off his rubber gloves. “He’ll decide how we’re going to heal this up, and I’ll be back to help him get the job done. Sound good?”

“You’ll come back?” said Winwin.

Yuta threw away his gloves. “Yeah,” he said, putting on his reassuring face. “You’re doing great. And I’ll be right there to make sure you’re okay.”

Winwin made a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks.”

Yuta nodded. “No problem, Campfire Man. Dr. Kim will be here in a few minutes.”

Yuta found Jungwoo at Taeyong’s desk talking to Yeri. “Woo! Hey,” he said, stopping beside them. “40B is ready for you. The hip laceration. It’s been open 20 hours, normal vitals.”

“Okay, thanks. Can it wait, mm, eight minutes?” said Jungwoo, already taking off in the opposite direction.

“Yeah, but I’d rather it didn’t…” Yuta called.

“Bleeding kid! Eight minutes!” Jungwoo said before pushing open the door to 26B and ducking inside wearing his signature feel-good smile.

“40B has a bleeding kid too,” Yuta complained to Yeri and Taeyong.

“Isn’t Ling Winwin twenty-three?” said Taeyong.

Yeri looked up from her papers. “Hey, wasn’t Ling Winwin my patient?”

“He is, and he was, but that’s not important.” Yuta snatched a piece of candy out of the jar. Taeyong gasped and stood up. “Yuta! You promised you wouldn’t take anymore candy today…!”

“That I did,” said Yuta and crunched on the candy with a ringing crack.

“Why do you trust him?” said Yeri.

“I promised that yesterday,” said Yuta. “It’s past midnight, baby.”

He blew the scowling Taeyong a kiss and went to check on another patient, a dehydrated construction worker who was on an IV. By the time he finished getting the man to sign some papers, Jungwoo was coming out of 40B.

“Thoughts?” said Yuta, redirecting his steps to walk with Jungwoo.

“Gonna be stitches,” said Jungwoo. “Get the man some anesthesia. I’ll be back in two seconds.”

“Okay,” said Yuta and broke away. A minute later he walked back into Winwin’s room with a needle and anesthetic. Winwin opened his eyes at the sound of the door. His hands were squeezed into fists again. Yuta hoped he wasn’t in too much pain.

“Hey, champ,” said Yuta, setting his things down. “How are you holding up?”

Winwin shrugged a little. Then he said, “What happened to my weird nickname?”

Yuta laughed. “Campfire Man? I thought you didn’t like it that much.”

“I didn’t at first,” said Winwin.

Yuta couldn’t stop smiling. The guy was so damn cute. “How about,” Yuta said, prepping the anesthetic and going over to the table, “I just call you your real name, and you call me mine. Winwin, Yuta. Yuta. Winwin.”

Winwin’s smile slid off his face a bit. “Okay.”

Yuta looked between Winwin and the anesthetic in his hand. “Not a big needle person, huh?”

Winwin shrugged again. “Who is?” he said with a little breath of air, like an attempt at a laugh.

“You make a point,” said Yuta. “But you’re doing a great job. In a little bit, this will be over and you can go home.”

Winwin nodded, swallowing. Yuta administered the anesthetic, talking Winwin through the shot as he went, and then Jungwoo arrived to do the stitches.

“And the mom was like, ‘I should have just let him play on his phone, then this never would have happened,’” said Yuta, throwing a hand over his head, “and the kid literally goes, ‘No way, Mom! Getting a Lego in my nose is the coolest thing that’s happened since Christmas!’”

Winwin was biting on the inside of his lips. For a second, the corners went up and his cheeks got all round.

“Ah…” said Jungwoo and paused, looking closer at the halfway-stitched wound.

“What?” said Winwin.

“You’re fine. Just stay still,” said Jungwoo calmly, gesturing to Yuta, who could see that the wound had begun to bleed thickly again, obscuring the stitches. Yuta grabbed cotton gauze and handed it to Jungwoo, then applied pressure to the edges of the cut. Winwin sucked in a breath at the unpleasant sensation. “What’s…”

“We’re working on controlling the bleeding,” said Jungwoo.

“It’s bleeding more?”

Yuta thought he heard a note of panic in Winwin’s restrained voice. Without removing his hands, he looked over his shoulder. Winwin was pale and staring at the ceiling.

“Some,” said Jungwoo. “Don’t worry, this is normal for a cut this deep.”

A muscle twitched in Winwin’s jaw. He was biting his lips together so hard they were almost white.

“Hey,” Yuta said, “hey, you’re all right. Look at me.”

He did. Holding his gaze, Yuta said, “Are you feeling okay?”

Winwin said nothing. “Let’s take a deep breath,” said Yuta. “In for two, out for two.” Jungwoo was stitching again. “One, two,” said Yuta, “one, two.”

Winwin’s lips parted as he breathed. “One,” said Yuta, maintaining eye contact with him, “two. One, two.”

Winwin nodded slowly. His eyes were a sort of reddish-brown, like the color of chestnuts. A few seconds passed. Then Yuta remembered where he was. “Great. Any better?”

“Yeah,” said Winwin.

“All done,” Jungwoo, and Winwin looked from Yuta to Jungwoo. “Eleven stitches. You’re finished. Yuta, scissors, please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! having a good time so far? get a snack if you want :D
> 
> below i'll leave a list of potential triggers to watch out for in the next chapter! if you don't care to look at them, move on so you don't get any tiny spoilers :)
> 
> here are some potential triggers to watch out for in the next chapter (chapter 3): fainting, mentions of car crashes, fire, serious burns, mention of broken bones, memory loss


	3. Chapter 3

The slew of strange robberies didn’t end. After the infamous masked people showed up at the store in the Dream Quarter, there was another incident in District 127. Like the first robbery back at the end of January, the store’s alarm was triggered and several hundred thousand won vanished, but no one showed up on the security cameras. In fact, the only thing out of place on the footage appeared to be a thin shadow along the wall between the cash register and the back door.

This made three unsolved burglaries, two of which had been successful, plus the fire at the Opus Building where a large portion of the National Security Bureau’s activity was based. Taeyong and Jaehyun kept teasing Yuta about the sudden crime spike. “You wanted the city of peace to turn spicy, well you got it,” Taeyong told him at work a few days after the news broke about the District 127 robbery.

“Would you shut it? I don’t like crime, that joke is old,” said Yuta, scrolling through his phone and popping candies into his mouth.

“Hey Taeyong, your man is on the TV,” said Irene, pointing over their heads as she swept by the desk to drop something in the insurance paperwork bin. Taeyong turned around and gave a tiny shriek, reaching for the remote.

“Unmute, unmute,” said Jaehyun.

“I am!”

“—know the people of Neo City are alarmed by these events,” President Moon was saying into a microphone at a podium outside the Opus Building, whose stone façade looked cold and undisturbed behind him. “I urge the citizens of this great city to stay calm and continue to support each other, but also to remain alert. If you see something out of place, do not hesitate to report it. Working together is what allowed us to enjoy decades of peace in this city, and working together is what will allow us to return to a state of equilibrium. Be kind to your neighbors. Help strangers.”

“Moon Taeil is the dreamiest president in the history of this city,” breathed Taeyong, straightening his glasses.

“You’re not wrong, but anyone would look like the dreamiest president in history next to that sack of sorghum flour,” said Yuta, pointing at the Director of the NSB who stood beside the president, hands behind his back, his coarse face expressionless as cameras flashed at it.

Jaehyun snickered and said, “Vicious.”

“Hey,” said Taeyong, “Ahn Han Geun was a snack twenty-five years ago. Have some respect.”

“What is it with you and government officials?” said Yuta.

“I don’t know,” said Taeyong. “Something about authority figures. Shush, my husband is still talking.”

“The recent robberies and fires are not currently thought to be connected to one another,” said President Moon. “However, police are working closely with the National Security Bureau to determine if a common factor can be isolated among the variables involved in the four cases. In addition, the National Security Bureau and the military are in the process of testing programs that have been in development for several years, which aim to further promote nationwide safety and unity.”

“Blah, blah, blah, what is he even saying? Can someone put a real-person filter on his mouth to translate the politician speak?” said Yuta.

“Just because he knows more words than you do, that doesn’t mean he needs a translator filter,” said Taeyong.

“You know he has people who write his speeches, right?”

Taeyong sighed and turned back to the TV. “Wow. How do I get that job?”

He jumped when the hospital landline on his desk rang. A second later, both Jaehyun and Yuta’s pagers went off. “Uh oh,” said Jaehyun, exchanging glances with Yuta as Taeyong snatched up the phone.

“Okay. Thanks, Jiwoo,” said Taeyong and put the phone down. “Middle-aged male, cardiac arrest, semiconscious. Go, go, go.”

“Got it,” said Yuta, already breaking into a run towards the waiting room with Jaehyun on his heels.

Two hours later, the man had been stabilized and discharged, and Yuta’s shift was a half hour from over. He went behind Taeyong’s desk to talk to him. Taeyong tried to get him to go away so he could do his work, and Yuta settled for shutting up and giving Taeyong a massage, which he didn’t object to. Then Taeyong tasked him with going to the lounge to refill the candy jar. When he came back with the candy bag in his arms, Taeyong waved at him and said, “Come here, come here. Patient.”

Yuta dropped the bag onto the ground. “What? I clock out in like ten minutes. Give the patient to Mark.”

Taeyong shook his head. “Nope. He asked for you. It’s the Ling Winwin guy again.”

Yuta’s heart did a strange, queasy maneuver, a simultaneous falling and perking up. Couldn’t this kid go half a month without hurting himself? “He asked for me?”

“Mm-hm. Here. Clipboard.”

The papers said that Ling Winwin was suffering from “dizziness, fainting.” Yuta bit his lip. It had better not be an infection. Winwin was tucked into the corner of the waiting room as usual, but this time a younger boy sat beside him, leaning over the armrest between them and talking in a low voice. Winwin saw Yuta and his eyes brightened.

Yuta grinned at him, then turned away and said, “Ling Winwin? Ling Winwin?” looking around at the faces of the patients on the other side of the room. Winwin folded his arms and stood up. The other boy glanced between them, got to his feet, and followed Winwin.

“Oh!” Yuta said, pretending to jump when he saw Winwin standing next to him. “You’re right here.”

Winwin’s smile puckered in silent laughter. The boy behind him narrowed his eyes. “You brought company,” said Yuta.

“He’s not coming back with us,” said Winwin.

“He can if he wants,” said Yuta.

“No,” said Winwin, “he can’t.”

The boy said, “Sicheng, just let—” and Winwin turned a sharp glare on him. Yuta frowned. The kid fell silent, mirrored Winwin’s look with a sullen glower and returned to his seat.

“My brother,” muttered Winwin, as if in apology, as they went through the ER doors.

Yuta nodded. “Cute kid. What did he call you? Sicheng?”

Without raising his face, Winwin gave Yuta a sideways glance. Then he said, “It’s just what he calls me. Like, a nickname.”

“Uh huh,” said Yuta, letting Winwin into room 38B. “So how’s the cut? Better than the last time you were here?”

Winwin hoisted himself onto the bed. “Yeah, thanks to you.”

“Me?” Yuta said.

Winwin kicked his feet. “Mm.”

Yuta reached for his arm to take his blood pressure and Winwin offered it up limply. “I was just doing my job,” said Yuta. “You were the real hero. You powered through eleven stitches without complaining once.”

Winwin shook his head. “Only an asshole would complain in the ER.”

“What?” Yuta laughed.

“Everyone’s already doing their best to help you,” said Winwin, “who goes ‘ _Ah, this really sucks_ ’ in the middle of a treatment?”

“You’d be surprised at how many people say ‘ _Ah, this really sucks_ ,’” said Yuta. At the blood pressure monitor’s beep, he removed it from Winwin’s arm and jotted down the numbers. Still low, but not quite outside the normal range. He added, “And you do know you’re allowed to say that you’re in pain when you’re in pain, right?”

Winwin’s smile turned a little quizzical, as if Yuta’s words weren’t fully clicking. Yuta clipped the heart rate monitor onto his pointer finger. “So what’s going on? You fainted today?”

Winwin looked away. “I didn’t really faint. Renjun made me come in because I didn’t feel that good. But I’m fine. I mean I probably just have a cold.”

“Renjun?”

“My—” Winwin pointed over his shoulder. “My brother.”

“What happened when you didn’t really faint, then?” said Yuta, taking the heart rate monitor back.

Winwin said, “I was busy today and when I got home, I fell in the doorway and it freaked him out. He’s been all worried because he found out that I had to come here alone for the burns and the cut while he was in class.”

Somehow, it was gratifying to know that Winwin had someone to worry about him. “Why did you fall?”

Winwin rolled his shoulders up in a slow shrug. “Just…I got dizzy.”

“Just for a second?”

“For a while,” said Winwin, not unreluctantly.

“All day?”

“A couple days.”

Yuta shuffled through the papers. “You’re still on antibiotics, right?”

Winwin shifted his hands under his legs and said, “Uh, no.”

Yuta looked up. “No?”

“They ran out.”

Yuta folded his arms and ran through other symptoms. Winwin hadn’t been nauseous, or vomiting, or having chills. His temperature was normal. His cut from the week before showed no signs of infection, and the burns on his arm were almost completely faded. “It’s just because I haven’t eaten much in the past few days,” he insisted, scratching his neck. “I’m fine. Can you just give me the all-clear so I can go home?”

Yuta considered him for a second. “Did you ask to see me because you thought you could get me to let you leave and get your brother off your back?”

Winwin’s face clouded over. “No, I asked to see you because I know you.”

Oh. Yuta felt bad now. “Okay, sorry. You’re right, you’re probably fine, but the doctor still has to see you, okay? I can’t just send you on your way without following procedure.”

“Procedure is overrated,” said Winwin with a little kick of one foot.

“Procedure saves lives, Campfire Man,” said Yuta, standing up with the clipboard.

Winwin lifted his eyebrows. “I thought you were done with the nickname.”

“I thought you liked nicknames, Sicheng,” said Yuta. Winwin’s eyebrows turned down. Yuta swung the door open and slapped the wall on his way out, saying, “Dr. Bae is on her way!”

“Yuta!” Winwin called after him.

Yuta skidded to a stop and whirled around. “Sicheng!”

“Winwin.”

“Sorry. Winwin.”

Winwin nodded.

“Did you have a question?” said Yuta.

“Oh,” said Winwin, looking around. “Uh…how long do you think it will take?”

“For Dr. Bae to come? Not long. Five, ten,” said Yuta.

Winwin nodded some more. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Hey,” Yuta added, “if I get caught up and don’t see you before you go, take care of yourself, okay?”

“Okay, I will.”

“I’m serious. Eat healthy food. Don’t walk into fires or kitchen knives.”

Winwin cocked a smile and said, “You got it.”

Two weeks later there was a snowstorm. Yuta hated snowstorms. Well, not the snow itself, he loved to be in the snow, but he hated blizzards. They almost always brought in newly-licensed teenagers who had never driven in snow before and crashed their parents’ cars on one of the smaller streets on the outskirts of the city. The ER had been quiet for the past few weeks—in fact, the whole city had been quiet, with the rash of strange robberies apparently over and the Opus Building repaired. He hoped it stayed that way, at least for tonight. He didn’t like when car crash victims came in. Especially when they were kids.

He was on the bus to work after dinner when an ambulance whizzed past, siren blaring. He rewound the IU song that was playing from his earphones—the siren had drowned out the good part—and watched the emergency lights turn the falling snow red before disappearing into the dark evening. “Fucking snowstorms,” he said.

A minute later, though, another ambulance roared past from the same direction. Hmm. Could there have been two crashes that close to one another? It was unlikely there had been a pileup, since most of the bigger roads with heavier traffic would be well-salted at this time of year. And besides, Neo City never had any pileups. Everyone drove too carefully.

He walked in through the staff door into a flurry of activity. He saw Mark down the hall and called, “Hey, what’s up?”

Mark raised a hand at him—the “hi, sorry, can’t talk” wave—and disappeared into a patient room. Yuta dropped off his things and clocked in. Then he went to Taeyong’s desk for check-in and found him on the phone with the front desk.

“No, I—yes. Oh, here he is now. No, he’s not, he’s early, his shift doesn’t start for another…! I know. Okay, bye.” Taeyong hung up the phone and handed a clipboard to Yuta. “Great, you’re here. There was another fire.”

“Fire?” said Yuta, taking his assignment. “What?” He looked down at the papers. Twenty-year-old woman with burns on her leg.

“Yeah. The public library. They just keep coming in,” said Taeyong.

“Shit,” said Yuta, turning down the hallway. He brought the young woman and her crying friend back into a room for burn patients, settling her lower body in a tub of cool water and taking her vitals. The woman’s eyes were glazed. Her right pant leg was mostly burnt away, and it clung to her mottled skin in tatters.

“We’re going to get you some pain meds, okay, Jiyeon?” said Yuta as he cut away the excess fabric. “How long was the fire in contact with your leg?”

She shook her head slowly. Yuta looked to the friend, who was bawling into her hand, the water bottle they’d given her lying abandoned at her feet. “Yuju, were you there when it happened?”

“Yes,” the poor girl sobbed.

“Stay with me, Yuju. You’re a good friend for getting her here so fast. She’s going to be all right. Did you get hurt?”

Yuju shook her head tearfully.

“That’s great.” Yuta finished elevating the woman’s leg as best he could while keeping it submerged. “Did you see how many seconds Jiyeon’s leg was in contact with fire? Maybe about five or ten, maybe more?”

Yuju gulped in a shaky breath and said, “I think ten. Yeah. Not more than ten.”

“Good. And that was a half hour ago?”

“Yes,” she said. Yuta told Jiyeon he was going to give her an IV, but she only looked at him vacantly. Quickly he got her to take some pain meds before she passed out. She swallowed them and her head lolled to the side.

“Yuju, I need you to tell me how this happened,” said Yuta, turning to prep an IV. “As best as you can remember.”

“There were these people,” said Yuju, blinking away tears, one hand holding Jiyeon’s. “People in masks.”

“Masks?” said Yuta.

“Like the people who robbed that store,” she said. “We were studying at a table on the second floor, and there was yelling upstairs and people started to stand up, and then this man in a mask ran by, and everyone was screaming and—and the man set a shelf of books on fire and pushed it over. And it made all the other shelves fall too and then the fire was everywhere…”

“Okay, Yuju, slow down. It’s okay, you’re safe now. What happened the moment that Jiyeon got burned?”

“We were trying to get to the stairs,” said Yuju, “but there were too many people, and a part of a shelf fell on her. It was burning. I tried to help her. But I couldn’t.”

Shit. On top of the burns, she might have broken bones too. “You did the best you could. How did she get the shelf off her?”

Yuju narrowed her eyes, as if having trouble remembering. “I think I was…I think the smoke made me confused…”

“It’s okay,” said Yuta, “just drink some more water and tell me what you can.”

Yuju absently lifted the water bottle from the ground. “There was another man. Or it was the same man. I don’t know. Someone in a mask. I thought he was going to hurt us but then he…he held out his hand and lifted up the shelf without…”

“Without hurting you?” said Yuta, taking Jiyeon’s arm and scanning for the vein.

“Without touching the shelf,” Yuju finished.

Yuta blinked. “He lifted up the shelf without touching it?”

She whispered, “I think so.”

“Okay.” Yuta nodded, dabbing iodine onto Jiyeon’s arm. “Okay, why don’t you drink some of that water, your body needs it. Just relax for a second. Jiyeon, I’m going to put in your IV now. This might hurt.”

Jiyeon gave little sign that she had heard him. He inserted the IV and asked Yuju, “Has she been like this since the shelf fell on her?”

Yuju hesitated. “No…”

Yuta glanced at her. “No?”

“She was crying,” said Yuju, “and I was trying to help her get down the stairs, but she said she couldn’t do it, and uh…someone in a mask showed up and put a hand on her head and said, ‘You can do it,’ or something, and Jiyeon said okay. And that was it. That was the last thing she said.”

“The—the guy in the mask touched Jiyeon’s head?”

“No. It was a woman in a mask this time. I think.”

“Did she hurt her?”

“No,” said Yuju. “Jiyeon just stood up and walked down the stairs with me. Like her leg didn’t even hurt.”

This was getting weirder by the second. Yuta threw away his rubber gloves and scribbled a few notes on Jiyeon’s clipboard. “You’re being a huge help, Yuju. Jiyeon’s lucky to have you. Wait here while I get Dr. Kim to help you, he’ll be over in just a second.”

After Yuta got in contact with Jungwoo and sent him Jiyeon’s way, he passed Mark in the hall. Mark leaned towards him and said, “Are you hearing this weird shit about the masked men?”

“Yes!” said Yuta. “And I just heard about a masked woman too!”

“Oh, shit.”

A second later Yuta arrived at Taeyong’s desk and said, “Tae, what’s happening right now?”

“This is fucking insanity. The police chief’s people keep asking me for a casualty estimation,” said Taeyong, “but _I_ have my plate full keeping people moving through so there aren’t more severe casualties. Those fucking people don’t know how to let me do my damn job. Here. You’ve got Ling Winwin again.”

Yuta felt something inside him drop sharply. “What? What’s he doing here?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe he’s here for a chat and a bit of tea,” said Taeyong. “He has a burn, Yuta. Go take care of him.”

“Oh,” said Yuta. He went through the papers as he made his way down the hall. _Burn on right shoulder_. When he opened the door to the waiting room, Winwin was there in a baby-blue sweatshirt, hugging his arms to himself. He got up as soon as he saw Yuta, without waiting for his name to be called, and Yuta nodded and beckoned.

“Were you in the library fire?” said Yuta as the ER doors swung shut behind them.

“What? No,” said Winwin.

Yuta pointed him into 26B. “So? What happened?”

Winwin perched on the bed, looking him over. “You’re not going to ask if I’ve been feeling better and if I’m eating my vegetables and all that?”

“Not until you tell me what you did to end up back here again,” said Yuta. “This is the fourth time in a month.”

Winwin sounded amused. “What, you don’t want to see me anymore?”

“Not here!” said Yuta, fumbling with the blood pressure monitor.

“Then where do you want to see me?” Winwin said.

Yuta almost dropped the whole BP monitor on the ground. Had he just been outflirted? No, no. “For example,” he said, meeting Winwin’s eyes briefly and taking his left wrist, “at the river when it’s snowing.” He turned Winwin’s arm over so he could strap on the blood pressure cuff. “Or at the aquarium, maybe. The movies would be nice too. Anywhere but here, now that I’m thinking about it.”

Winwin watched the cuff inflate. “The river’s probably pretty, right now, in the snow.”

“Of course it is,” said Yuta. “Have you never been to the river in the snow?”

Winwin said, “Not in a long time.”

The monitor beeped. Yuta unwrapped it from Winwin’s arm. “Can I take you?”

Winwin rubbed his arm and pulled his sleeve down. “Okay.”

Yuta smiled. Winwin’s cheeks were a little pink. Yuta realized his own face felt warm too. “Heart rate,” he said, holding out the heart rate monitor clip.

“Huh? Oh.”

Winwin held out his hand. Yuta waited for the red light to go green and then looked at the number. 100. A little high for him. “Congratulations,” said Yuta, jotting down numbers and tearing a slip of paper off the clipboard, “you managed to distract me.”

“What?”

“What did you do to yourself this time? Don’t say you were camping again because I won’t believe you.”

Winwin shook his head. “I wasn’t camping. I had a candle burning and I was reading and fell asleep, and I think I knocked it over by accident. The candle.”

“Really,” said Yuta.

“Yes,” said Winwin.

“Let me see,” said Yuta, and Winwin bent his neck to the side to awkwardly shrug off his sweatshirt. He made it halfway before pausing, looking up at Yuta and saying, “Can you…?”

“The hood?” Yuta asked, rushing to help.

“Just…slowly…” Winwin said. Yuta stretched the fabric away from Winwin’s skin and over his head. Winwin made a noise of pain.

“Sorry! Sorry,” said Yuta.

“No. You didn’t do anything.” Winwin pulled the neck of his outsized T-shirt down over his shoulder, exposing a bandaged area that stretched from his neck to upper arm. The bandage wasn’t taped down, and Yuta lifted it off easily. He exhaled. The burn wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. On the lighter side of second degree. It was extensive, though—it covered most of Winwin’s shoulder blade.

“So what caught fire? Your chair?”

“A blanket,” said Winwin, “and my clothes. I changed. Like, I took a shower to run cool water over it like you said and then changed.”

“Good memory,” said Yuta. “That was like four weeks ago when I told you that.”

“I remember,” said Winwin.

“You still manage to forget all the times I say to take care of yourself, though,” said Yuta, bringing down some pain meds.

A reproachful frown creased Winwin’s forehead. Yuta said, “Oh, so you call falling asleep on a candle being careful? Maybe you are unteachable. Doctors, we can’t help him.”

“It’s not my fault I fell asleep!” he protested.

“Sure you didn’t faint on the candle on account of not eating enough?”

Winwin gave him a dirty look. “Hey, what kind of nurse teases their patients about fainting?”

“I’m serious.” Yuta leaned the heel of his hand on the bed next to Winwin. “Are you eating? Have you been lightheaded at all since two weeks ago?”

“No,” said Winwin.

Yuta raised an eyebrow. “No, you haven’t been eating?”

“No, I haven’t been lightheaded,” said Winwin evenly.

“Hm.” Yuta straightened up. “I’m going to send Dr. Bae in here, okay? She might be a few minutes, it’s kind of a crazy day today.”

Winwin sat still as Yuta went back to the counter and picked up the clipboard. “A crazy day?”

Yuta put his hand on the doorknob. “Yeah. A lot of people got hurt in the fire at the library.”

Winwin’s forehead creased and he turned his face down.

“Anyway,” said Yuta, “I hope the next time we see each other isn’t here. You know it’s ER policy to bubble-wrap anyone who comes in five or more times a month.”

Winwin said, “My number’s on the paperwork,” gesturing at the clipboard.

“It would literally be illegal for me to use the paperwork to contact you,” said Yuta.

Winwin half-smiled. “I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Yuta shook his head and pointed. “No need. That’s my number right there.” Winwin raised his eyebrows at a folded piece of paper on the bed beside him. “Put it in your pocket before Dr. Bae sees,” Yuta said. “I have to go. Stay safe.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Winwin.

“I think you think that sounds more reassuring than it is,” said Yuta.

“What do you want me to say?”

“That you’ll stay safe.”

“Okay,” said Winwin, hand closing around the paper. “I’ll stay safe.”

Yuta bounced light on his heels down the hallway, found Irene, and went back to his other patient’s room. Jiyeon was stretched out on the bed now, her leg elevated, facing Yuju who was huddled in a chair.

“Jiyeon,” said Yuta as he ducked inside, “how do you feel? Did the meds bring the pain down?”

He was gratified to see her eyes, clear and lucid now, make contact with his. She blinked a few times, looking him up and down. “The…the what…?”

“The medicine I gave you?” he said.

She glanced at Yuju, then back at Yuta. “I’m sorry, who are you…?”

Yuta looked to Yuju too. She shook her head.

“I’m Yuta, your nurse,” said Yuta. “I hooked up your IV and gave you some medicine. You don’t remember?”

Jiyeon’s eyes followed the IV line in her arm to the clear bag hanging next to the bed. Alarm flickered on her face.

“Okay,” said Yuta, “don’t worry. You were in shock, it’s okay if some details are hazy. Just hang tight while I talk to the doctor and we get you what you need. Do you have any family coming in? Yuju, you should go home and rest soon.”

“Her parents are coming,” said Yuju, threading her fingers through Jiyeon’s.

“Great,” said Yuta. “Don’t forget about that water.”

Yuju, finally, looked down at the still-unopened water bottle in her lap, twisted the cap off and gulped it down. Yuta nodded in approval and closed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi it's me again...got some more warnings for chapter 4 for ya
> 
> potential triggers to watch out for in the next chapter (chapter 4): some fire again basically


	4. Chapter 4

**_WITNESSES CLAIM 5 SUSPECTS USED ‘MAGIC POWERS’ TO HELP CIVILIANS IN PUBLIC LIBRARY FIRE_ **

_Citywide sensation caused by reports and videos of “masked superheroes” at scene of Friday’s fire at Public Library (Neo City, Feb 26)_

_Over 20 victims of the Public Library fire on Friday describe being assisted by masked individuals with unexplainable or “supernatural” abilities, police say. It is unknown whether these individuals are the same masked people who appeared at the scene of the fire and attempted robbery in District 127 earlier this month._

_The abilities reported include superhuman strength, superhuman speed and/or flight, the ability to move objects with one’s mind (commonly known as telekinesis), and creation or manipulation of fire. There were also reports of “hypnosis” by one of the individuals._

_19-year-old Neo City University first-year Im Woohyun told the Neo City Press that he was studying at the library when he heard shouting and hid under a table, where he was subsequently trapped when the fire spread. He claims that “[one individual] just lifted the whole table up with one hand and tossed it away, like it was nothing.” Another witness, 21-year-old Lee San, says his girlfriend was having a panic attack during the fire when another individual approached them and “touched her forehead, talked to her for a second,” and calmed her down. “But [my girlfriend] didn’t really talk for like a half hour,” he says, adding, “And she forgot the whole thing afterwards. It was like she was hypnotized or something.”_

_Other witnesses make similar claims, and some captured the strange occurrences on video. One clip, below, shows a bookshelf fallen at a slant and blocking the 2 nd floor’s northwest exit. After two male students unsuccessfully attempt to move it, a masked individual appears and slams their fist down on the shelf, causing it to break in two and allowing the occupants to climb over it. The feat has earned the individual the moniker “The Hammer” on social media, which is calling the individuals “superheroes” for performing seemingly impossible tasks to assist the victims of the fire._

_However, some witnesses say that not all of the masked individuals were helping people. One masked person was seen running through the library before flames were detected and, afterwards, pushing over a row of bookshelves. 20-year-old Cha Yuju says that the individual also “lit the bookshelf on fire before he pushed it. I don’t know how he did it, but it was like a domino effect after that.” Police are currently investigating the five individuals, each of whom are suspects in the investigation of the fire’s origins._

_Perhaps the most remarkable “superpower” reported was the ability to move objects without touching them. One witness—_

“Yuta. Yuta,” said Taeyong.

Yuta looked up. “Huh?”

“Which one,” said Taeyong. He was holding his phone out across the table. There were pictures of two knit hats on the screen. “Did you hear me?”

“Nah,” said Yuta.

“I said the one that’ll make me look fruiter,” said Taeyong, pointing at the hats. “Which one?”

“They’re both cute,” said Yuta.

“I didn’t ask for cute. I asked for fuckable baby boy.”

“Can you keep your voice down? We are in a café. And you literally always look fuckable, a hat isn’t going to make a difference.”

“Oh, Yuta,” said Taeyong, fluttering his eyelashes, “is there something you want to tell me?”

“Ew, no,” said Yuta, putting down his phone.

“You sure about that? Can I have some of your shaved ice?”

“Sure. Taeyong, you’re sexy to me in the same way hot girls are sexy to me,” said Yuta. “Jesus, okay, easy, don’t take all of it.”

“I’m not taking all of it.” Taeyong slurped the sweet ice off his spoon.

“Look at this article about the Hammer and them,” said Yuta, opening his phone again. “Look at this girl. Cha Yuju. I had her in the ER on Friday.”

Taeyong peered closer at the screen. “Her? You saw a girl who saw Pyro?”

“What? Pyro?”

“That’s what they’re calling the fire guy,” said Taeyong, taking more of Yuta’s rapidly dwindling shaved ice.

“He got a superhero name too? I thought they didn’t know if he started the fire,” said Yuta.

“They don’t,” said Taeyong. “And I think it’s more a supervillain name than a superhero name.”

Yuta shrugged, knocking Taeyong’s spoon out of the way with his. “Either way, it’s better than the Hammer.”

“Yeah, who even came up with that?”

“Can you stop taking all of my—”

“No. You know why? You owe me for all the candy you steal. I’m settling a debt here.”

“Those candies are on the hospital budget! This bingsu cost me 9,000 won!”

“Do I look like I care?”

They scuffled momentarily for the last bite of bingsu. Yuta ended up getting the melted dregs at the bottom of the bowl. Taeyong smirked around the spoon at him. Yuta said, “Fuck you. Anyway, yeah, that was the girl I told you about, the girl who said somebody lifted a shelf off her friend with their mind. I thought she was, you know, a little delirious. But it was legit.”

“So you think they really have superpowers?” said Taeyong.

Yuta said, “Did you see the videos with the falling ceiling beams? Or the Hammer breaking the bookcase with his _fist?_ ”

“To be fair, maybe the structural integrity of the bookcase was already compromised and he just smashed it on a fault line,” said Taeyong, tapping the spoon against his teeth. “We don’t know.”

“People said he picked up tables and stuff, but okay. How do you explain the falling thing then?”

Taeyong pushed up his glasses. “You mean the video where a piece of the ceiling burns off and falls and right when it’s about to hit some people, it stops in midair?”

“Mm!”

“Have you heard of editing?”

“If it’s edited, then it’s edited the exact same way across like three videos. Plus there’s one with a guy in the background who, like, sticks out his hand towards it at the _exact_ time it stops falling.”

Taeyong’s eyebrows shot up. “That exists?”

“Yeah! I’ll find it and send it to you.”

“Okay, yeah, no, I have no explanation for that,” said Taeyong. “That’s real superhero shit.”

“I hope they make a movie about this in five years and cast Choi Minho as the Hammer.”

“Oh, like, SHINee Minho?”

“Yeah.”

“Valid. And speaking of hot boys—sorry, this is, like, barely related, I just remembered it. Did your favorite patient text you yet?”

Yuta looked out the window of the café, where the sun was turning Friday’s snowbanks pink. “Don’t remind me. The number of times I checked my phone yesterday…it was so unhealthy. And the alert volume was up the whole time.”

Taeyong made a sympathetic face and patted his arm. “Hey, it still hasn’t been 48 hours. You haven’t hit the point of no return yet.”

“Great, 48 hours is the point of no return? That’s in like four hours,” said Yuta.

Taeyong said, “Then you’ve got four hours of hope left, babycakes.”

“You really know how to make a guy feel worse while trying to make him feel better,” said Yuta.

Later that night, Yuta sent Taeyong videos of the burning beam falling from the ceiling. They showed people screaming at the sound of the beam breaking, and across the room, one of the masked people turning towards it. The person reached out a hand as if to catch it. Half a second later, it halted in the air, floating, flames still shivering along one edge. There were more screams and the wooden beam lowered to the side, slowly at first, then dropping suddenly.

_ok maybe we do have superheroes in the house_ , Taeyong texted him back.

Yuta was still scrolling through the comments thread under the video. _everyone says they must have telekinesis,_ he replied. _how do i get them to teach me_

_you don’t have the mental strength,_ said Taeyong.

_damn ok_

_did you see the name everyone’s giving him? kinetic. ki n e tic. can citizens of the net get any less creative_

_him or HER or THEM and yeah i told you everyone in this city shares a braincell_

_that’s worse than the hammer. do they know that kinetic energy is the energy of motion like. moving things?? this guy doesn’t even move things he stops things SKDFSIGS_

_no one thinks that hard about science taeyong. they have telekinesis boom kinetic its simple_

_simple doesn’t mean accurate._ Taeyong sent a reaction video he’d found somewhere with a lady saying, “What’s not clicking?” and Yuta replied, _I DIDNT COME UP WITH THE NAME DAMN_

_I’M SORRY I JUST REALLY DON’T LIKE IMPRECISION I WORK IN A HOSPITAL!!!_

_well i bet ull like the superhero names the others are getting,_ said Yuta.

_no please. they’re stupid aren’t they_

_the person who was hypnotizing people is hypnos now and the one who runs really fast is sparrow_

_SJSKJGBSDFSEBWLEJNLSDKJISHGSI_

Yuta laughed. _folks we broke him_

_HYPNOS WAS THE GREEK GOD/spirit OF S L E E P THAT NAME DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HYPNOSIS ITSELF?? THE INCOMPETENCE OF THIS CITY_

_isnt it the root of the word tho that has to count for something_

_UGH_

_nothing to say about sparrow?_

_idk it’s fine whatever_

_really? i thought ud flip ur top about sparrows not being able to run_

_i mean didn’t someone say the sparrow person can fly too?_

_no one has it on video so we’re not sure if its a thing but everyone who was there says they saw it_

_so 5 superheroes total?_ Taeyong said. _or 4 superheroes and 1 evil pyromaniac?_

_we still dont know what pyros deal is so dont assume But yeah hammer, kinetic, hypnos, sparrow & pyro UNLESS there are actually fewer people with multiple powers and they just seem like different people_

_god i really hope some of those nicknames don’t stick_

_agree, they should have named kinetic something cooler…like…Motion Man_

_you’re so annoying shut up_

_;3 :p XD_

_also any news on your cute hospital boy? it’s past the point of no return_

_thanks for reminding me. the news is im going to die alone,_ Yuta replied.

_dw me and president moon taeil will take care of you <3_

Yuta spent the next week telling himself he wasn’t surprised that Winwin had never texted him. He didn’t try, though, to convince himself he wasn’t disappointed. For a few days he thought of Winwin every time he got out the blood pressure monitor, which was every time a new patient came in. After that he only thought of him occasionally, like when he opened his dating app and was dissatisfied with every face it presented. Oh well. At least Winwin was keeping healthy enough to stay away from the hospital.

On his night off, Yuta was at a barbecue restaurant with Mark when they got a text from Taeyong in the hospital group chat. All it said was, _GO TO JAEHYUN’S TWITTER_.

“You see this?” said Yuta, putting down his chopsticks.

“Mm,” said Mark. He had only glanced at the message briefly, and his attention was already back on the grilling meat.

A new message appeared in the chat from Yeri: _why lol_

Yuta picked up his chopsticks again, lifted a piece of pork off the grill, wrapped it up in some lettuce and was about to stuff it into his mouth when his phone buzzed again. It was still Yeri. _HOLY SHITHSDJGI_

Yuta put down the wrap. The first thing he saw when he opened Twitter was a video with two hundred retweets. He did a double take. Jaehyun had only posted the video three minutes ago, his location marked _City Hall Intersection_. No—the video hadn’t been posted, it was streaming live.

“Mark,” Yuta said and clicked on the video just in time to see a blossom of fire billowing up into the night sky, illuminating several figures in masks on the street.

“Oh my god, is it the superheroes?” Mark said.

“ _Oh my god, it’s the superheroes_ ,” said a voice—Taeyong’s—somewhere near the camera. Jaehyun’s answer was inaudible amid the shouts of onlookers and the screeching of tires on asphalt as one of the masked figures reached towards a car several meters away and swung it sideways to block the path of someone darting towards the sidewalk.

“Kinetic!” said Mark excitedly and dropped the meat from his chopsticks while the shadowed figure dodged in another direction.

“And the Hammer,” said Yuta, pointing at a taller person, who caught the skidding car and pushed it straight at the escaping figure. Kinetic put out his hand again to slow the car as the figure dove out of its way, a lick of flame flashing.

“It’s Pyro!” said Mark. “They’re trying to catch him!”

“Text Jaehyun and Taeyong and tell them to get their asses away from there,” said Yuta.

“Why me? You text them!”

“I have the video up, stupid!”

Mark scrambled for his phone. There were screams on the video as Hammer and Kinetic looked around. The figure who had been trailing fire was nowhere in sight. The people in masks were arguing, and a woman’s voice could be clearly heard saying, “ _Again?_ ” while the Hammer turned to the crowd along the street and shouted, “ _Everyone please stay c—_ ”

“ _There!_ ” somebody screamed. Jaehyun’s camera turned towards a black-clad figure, already far up the street, kicking up the stand of a motorcycle. One of the masked people ran up the hood of the car that the Hammer had pushed, leaping from the roof after the motorcycle. They soared in an impossible arc down the street, landed on the roof of another car, and immediately took to the air again as the motorcycle disappeared from sight in the traffic.

“He’s _flying!_ ” said Mark. Other people at the restaurant, all on their phones, were emitting similar exclamations of surprise.

“No,” said Yuta, “he’s jumping.”

“He’s definitely flying.”

They watched the three other masked people follow the leaping figure in pursuit of the motorcycle. The camera itself followed them for a second or two before swiveling violently to Taeyong’s face. He seemed to have grabbed it from Jaehyun. “That’s a wrap, folks,” he said, and Jaehyun’s voice groaned, “Come on, T—” before the video ended.

“Oh my god!” said Mark. “Jaehyun and Taeyong saw the Hammer!”

“And Kinetic!” said Yuta.

“And Pyro and Sparrow! And I think I heard Hypnos too—”

“You think the jumping guy was Sparrow? Hey, did you text them to get somewhere safe?”

Mark looked down at his phone open on the table. “Oh, oops. I got distracted.”

Yuta’s eyes went back to the grill in the middle of the table and he said, “Shit! We’re burning the samgyeopsal!”

“We can get more,” said Mark, texting the chat.

“But it’s expensive!” said Yuta, shuffling the blackened meat to the edge of the grill as quickly as he could.

Mark ignored him, guffawing at his phone.

“What are they saying?”

“ _‘Panties dropped for the Hammer.’_ ”

“Who?”

“Guess.”

“Taeyong.”

“Yeah.”

Yuta, having rescued the meat to the best of his ability, crunched on a lettuce wrap and said, “Let’s be honest here, Kinetic’s the real heartbreaker. Seck see.”

“The flying guy’s the coolest.”

“Sparrow can’t fly, Mark.”

“Ehh.”

Yuta finally closed Twitter. The hospital chat was flooded. He pulled up his messages with Taeyong and texted, _so do u believe in superheroes yet or not??_

Taeyong replied, _YES HONEY. NOT ONLY DO I BELIEVE IN SUPERHEROES, I BELIEVE I AM GOING TO MARRY ONE._

Taeyong and Jaehyun said that they had been walking out of a stationery store on City Hall Intersection when they noticed lights flickering outside the Opus Building. It turned out that the lights were flames, and that the Opus Building had been broken into, “possibly by the same individual who is suspected to have set fire to the Public Library last Friday, popularly known by the nickname ‘Pyro,’” said the Neo City Press. News outlets were still hesitant to use the word “supervillain,” but no one was holding back any longer from saying “superhero.” What before had been labeled by the media as “a group of vigilantes” at best and “a gang of teenagers playing cops and robbers” at worst was now being called the “Fighting Four,” a superhero team with superpowers, and the city couldn’t stop talking about them and what had happened at the “City Hall Brawl.”

“The Opus Building has been attacked again,” said the head of the National Security Bureau on live television late that morning, while President Moon stood at another microphone next to him, “and we’ve determined that the perpetrator of both attacks is the same individual. While this suspect has yet to be identified, it is clear that he or she possesses abilities we would consider outside the range of normal.”

“This guy’s so stinky,” said Yuta, wrinkling his nose. “How hard is it to just say ‘they’?”

“Hear, hear,” said Yeri.

“We have reason to believe,” the man went on, “that the suspect, who was also witnessed outside City Hall destroying property, was targeting classified files on city security and may have ties to mainland extremist causes. Despite the suspect’s hostile intentions, the Opus Building remained secure thanks to the courageous efforts of our skilled security personnel.”

“Mainland extremist causes?” Yuta repeated.

“We still don’t know exactly what the individual’s motives for attempting to enter the Opus Building were,” put in President Moon. He looked directly into the camera. “However, the situation is controlled.”

“So Pyro got away,” said Jungwoo, walking up to Taeyong’s desk with a clipboard under his arm.

“He got away easy,” said Yeri. “Left his motorcycle in front of a roadblock, set it on fire, walked into the crowd and fucking disappeared. He’s like Houdini.”

“No, Kinetic is like Houdini,” said Yuta. “He’s actually magic.”

“You think it’s magic?” said Mark with his chin in his hands.

“Whatever it is,” said Yuta, “it’s the coolest thing to happen on this island since Moon announcing he was running for president.”

“Hypnos is easily the coolest,” said Yeri. “Number one, she’s a girl. Number two, she can mind control people. Number three, _she’s a girl_.”

“Yuta,” said Taeyong, “patient.”

“It’s Jaehyun’s rotation,” said Yuta, watching the TV.

“It’s Ling Winwin,” said Taeyong. Yuta’s mouth opened. Taeyong handed him the clipboard and said, “Have fun.”

“He…?”

“Asked for you.”

“Oh,” said Yuta, turning away down the hall. He was suddenly unaccountably nervous. Ling Winwin? Again? Was this the fifth time? Yuta realized he’d been operating under the baseless assumption that Winwin wouldn’t be back to the ER soon, or at least that it would be a while before he saw him again. He counted back. It had only been eleven days. Why had it felt so long?

Yuta walked through the doors and saw Winwin in the corner, with his soft hair and brown eyes. They looked at each other. Yuta knew he shouldn’t be happy to see him—it was a hospital, Yuta was at work, and if Winwin was here then he was hurt. Still, there was something nice about seeing his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> having fun? need some water? get water dude
> 
> potential triggers to watch out for in chapter 5: broken bones, mentions of assault


	5. Chapter 5

“Ling Winwin,” Yuta said after a moment. He beckoned with the clipboard. Winwin put a hand on the armrest, gritted his teeth, and looked around.

“Could you…” he said.

“What?” said Yuta.

Winwin shook his head and slowly stood up, leaning heavily on the armrest. Yuta, realizing that he was in pain, ran to him, offering an arm. Dumbass—he’d forgotten to read the paperwork. Winwin stood still for several seconds, not making eye contact.

“It hurts?” said Yuta.

Winwin nodded.

“Where?”

Winwin tapped his lower rib cage. Yuta turned away, saying, “They didn’t get you a wheelchair? Let me just go—”

“No,” said Winwin. Yuta turned back to him. “I don’t need a wheelchair,” Winwin said. “If you just—could help me.”

“Okay. Of course.” Yuta put an arm under Winwin’s gently, allowed him to adjust, and felt Winwin’s hand grip his opposite shoulder. He was breathing shallowly. Broken rib, maybe.

“That okay?” said Yuta, and when Winwin nodded, he steered him through the ER doors and down the hall. They walked slowly—even small movements on the left side of his body caused Winwin to wince. His fingers loosened on Yuta’s shoulder, gripped harder, and then fell again. Yuta put his hand on top of Winwin’s to draw it back up, and Winwin’s breathing evened.

“We could get you somewhere comfortable a lot faster if you let me get a wheelchair,” said Yuta.

Winwin grunted, “Don’t need one.”

“I think you do need one.”

“Other people need it more.”

“Winwin,” said Yuta, “this is a hospital. Our supply of wheelchairs isn’t exactly limited.”

Winwin didn’t say anything. “Well,” said Yuta, stopping them outside 40B, “we’re here, so it looks like you won this round. But you’re not leaving this room on two legs.”

“You make it sound like you’re going to break them off,” Winwin said as Yuta pulled open the door and they crossed the room.

Yuta grinned. “Would that be so bad?” He eased Winwin down onto the bed. “You’d never have foot cramps again.”

Winwin released Yuta’s shoulder and unthreaded his fingers from Yuta’s, letting his hand fall onto the bed next to him. “I don’t get foot cramps,” he said.

“Well congratulations, you’re the luckiest man on earth. Foot cramps are just reminders from Satan that he exists.”

Winwin let out a breath of a laugh, then winced. Then, “If I were the luckiest man on earth, I wouldn’t be at the hospital this much.”

“Whatever you’re here for,” said Yuta, flipping through the paperwork, “it can’t be as bad as foot cramps.” _Bruised torso, pain when breathing_. Definitely rib trauma. “Okay, and how about the eleven other maladies you’ve suffered recently? How are they feeling?” he said, pushing up Winwin’s sleeve and winding the blood pressure cuff around his arm. “You know, the burn on your shoulder, the slice on your hip, the spontaneous fainting—what else was there?”

“The fainting wasn’t—”

“No, don’t tell me, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, the time you were trying to play the piano with your feet and fell and cut your forehead on the…oh, no, I’m thinking of someone else…”

Winwin was trying hard not to smile. “Hey,” he said, “can you not…”

“Oh.” Yuta looked up. “Laughing hurts?”

Winwin nodded.

“Shoot. I’m sorry.” Yuta removed the blood pressure monitor and took out the heart rate clip. “I’ll try my best to be unfunny. Here. What’s a kangaroo’s favorite place to go? The hopspital!”

Winwin laughed through his nose, and his smile turned down. “Yuta.”

“Right. Sorry.” Yuta put away the vitals monitors and made notes on the clipboard. “So, rib pain. Can I take a look?”

Winwin nodded and Yuta pulled up his sweater, then the T-shirt underneath. Last month’s cut looked to be scarring healthily; the stitches were gone, though the red marks from the thread holes remained. Higher up, though, a mottled purple bruise was sprawled across the lower side of Winwin’s left rib cage. Yuta’s throat tightened. “Jeez, what did you do now?”

Winwin stared at the ceiling. Yuta waited for him to talk. When he didn’t, Yuta said, “Hey Winwin.”

“Kind of hurts to talk too,” said Winwin.

“You felt good enough to chitchat about foot cramps a minute ago,” said Yuta.

Winwin shrugged, flinching the slightest bit. “I got punched.”

Yuta looked back at the bruise. “By Godzilla?”

When Winwin didn’t answer, Yuta pulled his shirt and sweater back down. “No, I know. You got hit by the Hammer, right? Only a guy like that could give you a bruise like this.”

“The Hammer?” said Winwin, watching Yuta go to the cabinet.

“Yeah. The superhero guy.” Yuta brought down pain meds. “Or—or! Wait! I got it! You _are_ the Hammer!”

Winwin, sounding a bit baffled, said, “Me?”

“Sure, or one of his friends,” said Yuta. “Maybe Kinetic, since he’s the most badass.”

Winwin raised his eyebrows. “Uh huh.”

“You do always seem to come in right after something weird happens in the city,” said Yuta as he ran water into a cup. “ _And_ you get burned a lot. I’m sure the Fighting Four get burns all the time from battling the guy with the fire powers.”

“Did you just say ‘the Fighting Four’?” said Winwin.

“Yeah. The superheroes? You do know what I’m talking about, right? Or do you live under a rock? Let me help you sit up, you need some pain relievers.”

Yuta put his hand on Winwin’s back and let Winwin hold his other hand for balance. Winwin accepted the pills and water. When Yuta lowered him back down, Winwin said, “Yeah, I know about the superheroes. I didn’t know there was, like, a catchy team name.”

“It’s fun, right? It’s got a _Power Rangers_ kind of feeling.” Yuta sat down on the stool next to Winwin. “Really, though. What happened?”

Winwin said, “I told you. I got punched.”

That was doubtful, judging by the extent of the bruise, which was four or five times the size of even a large fist. Still, Yuta said, “Were you assaulted? We can help you report it to the police.”

“No thanks.”

“Who punched you and when?” said Yuta.

“Some guy, last night. I didn’t know him,” said Winwin. At Yuta’s raised eyebrow, he said, “It was a big punch. I also fell off my bike when I was trying to get home, I think that made it worse.”

Yuta considered this. “Winwin, is there something you haven’t been telling me about these injuries?”

Winwin frowned. “No.”

Yuta said, “Nothing having to do with your family or your home life…?”

“Oh.” Winwin shook his head. “No. I only live with my brother, and he’s way too puny to do this to me. You saw him. No, my—home is fine.”

He was telling the truth. “Okay,” Yuta said. “If there’s ever anything else you want to tell me, you can.”

“Yeah,” said Winwin.

Yuta stood up and reached for the clipboard to make some more notes. When he finished, Winwin’s gaze had traveled to the muted TV in the corner. Yuta watched Winwin’s copper-brown eyes flicker over the “ _CITY HALL BRAWL UPDATES_ ” headline.

“You should have had your brother bring you,” said Yuta.

Winwin met Yuta’s eyes. “What?”

“How did you get to the hospital?”

“The bus,” said Winwin.

“How? You could barely get here from the waiting room,” said Yuta. “You shouldn’t travel alone when you’re hurt. It’s dangerous. What if something happened?”

Winwin said quietly, “My brother has to be in class.”

Yuta swallowed. He dropped the clipboard on the counter and went closer to the bed. Winwin blinked up at him.

“If you _insist_ on continuing to get hurt,” Yuta said, “then just call the ambulance next time. Or at least ask a neighbor to drive you or something.”

“Mhm,” said Winwin.

Yuta let out a long, melodramatic sigh. “You’re hopeless, aren’t you, Ling Winwin.”

Winwin smiled a little. Yuta stepped away to take off his gloves.

“Sorry I didn’t text you,” Winwin said.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Yuta, tossing his gloves in the trash, “you’re still my favorite patient.”

Winwin said, “I’ve just had a lot going—”

“Hey.” Yuta turned around. “You don’t have to explain yourself. It’s all right. Mm?”

Winwin gave him a bemused and almost wistful look, as if he’d lost something important and was trying to remember where he’d last put it.

“I’m going to send in Dr. Kim now,” said Yuta. “He and the team will figure out if you have any fractures or breaks in your ribs.”

“Okay,” said Winwin.

Jungwoo sent Winwin to get X-rayed. In between caring for other patients, Yuta got ahold of copies of the scans. Mark looked over his shoulder in the hallway and said, “Who’s got rib fractures?”

“My favorite patient,” said Yuta mournfully.

“The Winwin guy?”

“Yeah.”

Mark circled in front of him and slapped his hand flat on the stack of X-rays. “Hey. Clinical distance, man.”

Yuta shook Mark’s hand off the scans and went in the direction of Taeyong’s desk. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m just saying,” called Mark after him, “you’ve always been bad about getting emotionally invested in your—”

“ _Bad about_ it,” said Yuta, walking backwards, “or _good_ _at_ it?”

Mark folded his arms and shook his head. Yuta dropped the scans off with Taeyong and looked at what he had on deck. The kid who had had an allergic reaction to shrimp was stable and resting in 36B; the old lady with the rash was waiting for Jungwoo in 30B. But Jungwoo was still with Winwin. He should probably help Jungwoo finish up with Winwin, so Jungwoo could go take care of the old lady. After all, the rash had looked pretty itchy.

“…about six weeks to heal,” Jungwoo was saying when Yuta opened the door. Both Jungwoo and Winwin’s heads turned to Yuta.

“Uh—when you’re—I have some papers for you to sign when you’re done speaking with Dr. Kim,” said Yuta.

Winwin nodded. Jungwoo raised an eyebrow before continuing, “You’ll want to avoid any kind of sports or activities that require vigorous movement, but don’t just sit still all day, either. It’s important that you walk around and move your shoulders sometimes.”

Winwin nodded some more while Jungwoo told him not to avoid breathing deeply and coughing when he needed to. After Jungwoo left to help the rash lady, Yuta stayed with Winwin while he signed the papers and looked over the rib fracture information sheet.

“Okay,” Yuta said, taking the discharge papers from Winwin’s hand, “this time, you really can’t come in again soon, because it’s against the rib fracture rules to do anything dangerous, so if you get hurt again we’ll know that you weren’t following the doctor’s orders.”

“You can get hurt doing things that aren’t dangerous,” said Winwin, who was still looking at the info sheet.

“What—? You’re literally not allowed to do anything besides breathe deeply and move your shoulders. Even _you_ can’t injure yourself by moving your shoulders.”

Winwin folded the info sheet in half and then again into quarters. “Why do I have to move my shoulders and breathe deeply? Aren’t—” He let out a small, quick gasp and his hands stilled. “Aren’t bones not supposed to move while they heal?”

“It’s uh,” said Yuta, “mostly about keeping your lungs healthy. If you restrict your breathing, you could end up with pneumonia. Hey—did Dr. Kim give you an anesthetic shot?”

Winwin breathed in. “He said I could have one if the pain was bad, but I said no.”

“You can barely move your body, Winwin. You need anesthetic to get home,” said Yuta.

“No,” said Winwin, trying to sit up as if to prove he was fine, “no, it’s okay. My brother’s coming.”

“Really?” Relief broke in Yuta’s chest.

“Yes,” said Winwin. “He’ll be here in a second. So like, am I free to go?”

“No,” said Yuta, “no, you’re not free. Hang on one second. There’s a wheelchair outside.”

Winwin groaned. “Yuta, I said I didn’t want a—”

“That’s too bad, Mister Ballistically Pain-Tolerant, because I already got it. Or would you rather I break off your legs?” Yuta said as he rolled the wheelchair into the room.

Winwin fixed him with dull look. Yuta shrugged. “Compulsory hospital procedure for these kinds of incidents.”

Winwin shook his head slightly and then said, “Fine.”

Yuta beamed and helped him into the wheelchair, then wheeled him down the hall and through the waiting room. Winwin got a few sympathetic glances from other waiting patients, which he avoided resolutely, staring at his lap. Yuta rolled him out of the doors and up the roundabout. “Where’s your brother going to pick you up?”

“Around here,” said Winwin. “Can we leave this wheelchair here after?”

“Oh, I’ll get it,” said Yuta cheerfully, shielding his eyes against the midday sun and peering across the parking lot towards the colorful street.

“You’ll get it?”

“As soon as your brother gets here,” said Yuta.

Winwin turned his face up to Yuta sharply. “You’re going to stay out here?”

“Mm hm.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you have other things to do? Patients to tend to?”

“Golly, I do. But you know what you are?”

“What—”

“A patient. And do you know what I’m doing right now?”

Winwin sighed. He said, “Tending a patient.”

“You got it, my friend.”

Winwin clicked his tongue. A few seconds later he took out his phone. He glanced sideways at Yuta, who looked away. Winwin tapped at his phone and sent a text. Yuta tried not to laugh.

After a moment Winwin’s phone went off and he quickly picked it up, cupping his hand around his mouth. “Look, it’s not a big deal, you can—”

The voice on the other end of the line squabbled, loudly enough that Yuta was able to make out the words “… _you always do this, what am I supposed to_ —” and Winwin said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I’ll explain when you get here,” and hung up.

Yuta, who had moved a few steps away out of discretion, gazed studiously across the street. Another several seconds passed. Then Winwin said out of the corner of his mouth, “You can come back now.”  
Yuta walked back to his side. A few minutes passed. Yuta messaged Jungwoo asking, _how’s rash lady?_ and Jungwoo said, _Fine. TY’s getting in touch w her prim care prov to get more info abt past issues._ Yuta sat on the pavement next to Winwin’s wheelchair. Winwin sent another message from his phone.

“What did you say the name of the superhero group was?” Winwin said after several minutes.

Yuta looked up at him. His nose was pink and his blond hair whipped flat in the early spring wind.

“You cold?” said Yuta.

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Are you? You don’t have to stay out here.”

“It’s cool. Sorry—the Fighting Four. Do you go on the internet ever? It’s all over Twitter.”

“I guess not that much.”

Of course not. “Yeah, the Fighting Four. The guy with super strength is the Hammer, the guy with telekinesis is Kinetic, the girl who mind-controls people is Hypnos—”

“Mind-controls?” Winwin said, eyes widening.

“Or, hypnotizes, I don’t know. Didn’t you hear about her?”

Winwin slowly shook his head. “I…I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, she, like, gets people to do stuff and they don’t remember after,” said Yuta. “And there’s also Sparrow who, well, no one knows if he can fly or not but basically yeah.”

Winwin chuckled.

“Yeah. I think he’s probably just jumping and looks like he’s flying.” Yuta pulled his knees in and put his chin on them to conserve body heat. “Which one’s your favorite?”

“I have to pick?”

“It’s required,” said Yuta. “You can also pick Pyro the fire villain if you’re feeling edgy or something.”

Winwin’s hand lifted and briefly hovered over his fractured rib. His mouth was tight.

“To be fair, no one really knows if he’s a villain or if he’s just a chaotic mess or if he’s even one person,” Yuta went on to try to distract him from the pain. “But whatever his deal is, he’s got the NSB’s panties all in a twist. Anyway, who’s your favorite? Out of those five.”

“Mmm,” said Winwin and his hand fell back into his lap. “Maybe the flying guy.”

“Even if he can’t fly?”

Winwin smiled. “Even better. He managed to con half the city into thinking he can fly.”

Yuta laughed. At that moment a small figure on a bicycle peeled into the parking lot, a sky-blue coat flapping behind him. Winwin’s brother.

“Okay,” said Winwin, “you can go back in now.”

“I’ll—”

“YOU FUCKING IDIOT,” Renjun yelled as soon as he was within earshot. Winwin’s eyes rolled and closed in the same second.

Yuta looked back and forth between them. “Do you need a ride? I could arrange—”

“WE’LL GET A TAXI,” said Renjun, pulling to a stop, red with fury or exertion or both. “THANK YOU.”

Winwin said, “We’re not getting a—”

“I HAVE FORTY THOUSAND WON IN MY POCKET.”

“What? That—you’re not using that for—”

“OH NO? WELL GUESS WHAT,” retorted Renjun, “I BORROWED IT FROM SEULGI AND SHE SAID TO USE IT TO BRING YOU HOME SAFE…”

Winwin looked at Yuta and said, “Please go inside,” and Yuta said, “The wheelchair,” and Winwin set his jaw and stood up.

Both Yuta and Renjun rushed to his side at the same time, the bicycle toppling to the ground. Yuta was there first. Winwin shrugged Yuta’s hands off and leaned into Renjun, who had arrived a second after.

“Okay,” said Yuta, withdrawing. “Get home safe. And call that taxi, you shouldn’t be bumping around in a bus right now.”

“Roger that,” said Renjun, glaring at Winwin even as he gave him his full support.

“See you,” said Yuta, trying not to sound regretful, and then, “I mean, hopefully not…not soon… I mean…”

Renjun turned his glare over Winwin’s shoulder to Yuta. Winwin still wasn’t answering him. He was panting from pain.

“Uh, feel better,” said Yuta, taking the handles of the wheelchair and walking backwards. He watched Renjun and Winwin’s overlapping figures until he heard the automatic doors of the hospital open behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's good
> 
> potential triggers to watch out for in chapter 6: nothing much except some rhetoric that isn't xenophobic exactly but may be vaguely reminiscent of xenophobia or something?


	6. Chapter 6

The cherry blossoms came and went in Neo City.

Yuta was somewhat relieved when he didn’t see Winwin for two weeks, and even more when three weeks turned to four. The Fighting Four didn’t make an appearance either, and after five weeks, videos of them had all but stopped circulating on Twitter. Taeyong complained about the Hammer disappearing just when he’d fallen in love with him, and the only time he shut up about it was when President Moon and Director Ahn Han Geun went on TV praising the city for persevering through a turbulent time.

“It has been inspiring,” said Moon, gazing serenely into the camera, “to see the citizens of Neo City join hands and rise up in the face of fear. I don’t know how to thank you all for the bravery you have shown during this time.”

“I know how you could thank me,” said Taeyong. “In fact I can think of a few ways.”

“Taeyong, there are people here,” said Yeri.

People began to write off the winter of 2020 as an anomaly that would appear in social studies textbooks as an example of the illusory truth effect. There were no such things as superheroes or supervillains, everyone agreed, adding that they themselves had never believed in superheroes even though everybody else had bought into the craze. For a little while, the clip of Kinetic reaching out his hand towards the burning beam resurfaced as a meme, but even that soon died. Life in Neo City seemed to have returned to normal.

May, though, was a different story.

“Are you going to the open press conference?” Taeyong asked Yuta on his way to clock out of work.

Yuta shrugged, taking a candy from the jar. “Probably.”

“Want to go early together and get a good spot?” Taeyong said eagerly, glancing at the candy and back up at Yuta.

“You have off tomorrow too?” said Yuta.

“I’ll get Jiwoo to take my shift,” said Taeyong.

Yuta sucked on the candy and said, “I would, but I don’t want to be there when you nut in your pants at the closeup view of the president.”

Taeyong stood up. “You are literally in a hospital. There are patients nearby who could hear you.”

“I will be arriving no earlier than fashionably on time,” said Yuta, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Please!” Taeyong changed tactics and leaned forward with his hands clasped in front of him and his eyes wide. “You owe me this. I haven’t commented once on your candy consumption all day. And don’t think for a second it hasn’t cost me an effort.”

“The press conference is at 10,” said Yuta. “You think getting up early on my day off is worth a few extra candies?”

Taeyong stamped his foot. “Do this one thing for me! I am your best friend!”

Best friend? Yuta raised his eyebrows. That was the cutest thing he’d heard all week. “My best friend, huh? Sorry to break it to you, but I’ve got best friends back on mainland Esem. Soshi buddies.”

“Friends you talk to like once a month,” said Taeyong, storming out from behind his desk. “How often do you talk to _me?_ ”

Yuta’s arms were folded, but he couldn’t hide his smile. “Every—”

“That’s right, every day! Plus you’ve said yourself that I’m the only person you can talk to about _The Untamed_ , which is the most important thing in the world, so put two and two together, buddy!”

“I’m kidding, Tae, I’m kidding. Of course you’re my best friend. But I don’t get up early for anyone,” said Yuta. He aimed his feet for check-out and said, “Bye!”

Taeyong grabbed him by the back of his scrubs. Yuta pinwheeled his arms to get his balance. Irene, passing by the desk, said, “Yes, Taeyong, vibe check him.”

“I- _rene!_ ”

“Gladly, Doc,” said Taeyong, yanking him back. Yuta sputtered. “Listen,” said Taeyong, “if you go with me, I’ll buy you the Love Poem photocard you don’t have.”

Yuta stopped struggling. “You what?”

“I will.”

Yuta regarded him for a moment. Then he said, “The whole album.”

“Yuta, this is not a negotiation.”

“You have a funny way of asking your newly-designated best homie to do you a favor,” said Yuta.

“Don’t you already have the album? What if you get the same photocard you already have?”

“Supporting my queen is more important to me than getting new photocards,” said Yuta.

Taeyong rolled his eyes and released him. “Deal.”

“ _IIIIII’LL BE THERE_ ,” sang Yuta as Taeyong went behind his desk.

“Stop,” said Taeyong.

“ _BEHIND YOU, WHO IS WALKING ALONE_ —”

“Go home.”

“ _SINGING TIIIIIILL THE END_ …Say it! IU is the greatest songwriter of our generation!”

Taeyong looked at his nails.

“SAY IT!”

“IU is the greatest songwriter of our generation. Now leave, you’re scaring the patients.”

This was how Yuta found himself trapped for two hours at the front of the public section of the open press conference, a few rows behind the reporters’ section and in desperate need of a pee, the next day outside City Hall. He was surrounded mostly either by angry soccer moms with signs that said things like “IMPROVE NEO CITY SECURITY, KEEP OUR FAMILIES SAFE” or by President Moon fans, like Taeyong, with signs that said “WE STAND WITH MOON.”

“What do they even stand with him _on?_ ” Yuta asked Taeyong. “No one’s mad at him for this. Everyone’s going after Ahn and the NSB.”

“They don’t have to stand with him on anything,” said Taeyong. “The sign just means they would suck his dick.”

“Not everyone is you, Taeyong.”

“You’d be surprised how many people are me when it comes to Moon Taeil’s dick.”

“Stop talking about dicks, it’s making me have to pee,” Yuta said, looking around and shifting his weight to the other leg.

Taeyong choked. “ _What?_ You think about dicks and the first place your mind goes is peeing?”

“When I’ve had an entire Mountain Dew sitting in my bladder for the past ninety minutes, yes, absolutely,” said Yuta.

“Jesus,” said Taeyong, “remind me never to suck your dick,” and smiled tightly at a lady in front of them who turned around.

“I hope you never need a reminder,” said Yuta out of the side of his mouth.

“It’s your own fault you drank an entire Mountain Dew at 8 A.M. knowing this thing doesn’t start till 10. Who the fuck drinks Mountain Dew at 8 in the morning? You know what, no, who the fuck drinks Mountain Dew?”

“Well, gosh, I seem to remember asking to stop for coffee, and _somebody_ saying there was no time and that he would leave me if I didn’t get something from the convenience store in under 20 seconds—”

“That’s your fault! You were 15 minutes late to the station!”

“—forcing me to grab the first caffeinated drink I saw off the shelves and book my ass through checkout, when honestly I should have just taken my sweet time, because I wasn’t the one who wanted to get here early in the first place,” Yuta said, raising his voice at the end of the sentence over Taeyong’s shushing.

“Yuta, it’s starting, it’s—! Shhh! Yuta! OHMYGODTHEREHEIS!”

A few scattered screams went up around them, and then a wave of cheering, as Moon Taeil stepped up onto the makeshift stage and up to a podium. Taeyong was squeezing Yuta’s arm with an iron grip. Yuta had to admit, the guy was attractive, all poised and serious, cutting a dignified figure against the backdrop of the City Hall columns and the mottled-gray sky. Not to mention how good he looked in a suit. Not that Yuta had ever seen him in anything other than a suit.

“YUTA,” gasped Taeyong, “I’M GOING TO MARRY.”

“You can’t. He’s the president.”

“I’M GOING TO ANYWAY. SOMEDAY I’M GOING TO…hey, it’s Ahn Han Geun.”

“Ew,” Yuta said as the older man stood behind President Moon.

“Would you smash?”

“Taeyong, we’ve been over this. Ahn Han Geun isn’t hot anymore.”

“Fine,” said Taeyong, “would you smash thirty-year-old Ahn Han Geun?”

Yuta looked at him. “What is the point of this hypothetical?”

“You’re avoiding the question. I think that means yes.”

“Hello, friends,” said Moon into the mic, his voice booming out of the loudspeakers. It reverberated in Yuta’s ears and swept in echoes over the street outside City Hall, which the police had blocked off for the press conference. Taeyong’s knees buckled, and he threw one hand over his heart and the other onto Yuta’s shoulder for support.

“I’m glad to see you today,” said Moon, hands gripping the podium in a stately-but-sexy manner, gazing out over the few thousand people gathered on the street. “It’s always a pleasure to speak with the citizens of Neo City face-to-face. But the circumstances that made this dialogue necessary are, of course, less than ideal.” He gave a sad, dignified laugh, adjusting the microphone.

“MARRIAGE,” whispered Taeyong.

“ _Shhh_.”

“As you all know by now,” said Moon, “last night there was another incident at the Opus Building, where the National Security Bureau is housed and where the majority of our security and intelligence operations are based. This is the third incident at the Opus Building this year, the first being the fire in January and the second being the incident in March.”

Cameras snapped, illuminating the president’s face in flashes. The crowd was murmuring restlessly. Yuta glanced at Taeyong, who was smiling up at Moon like a kid seeing Santa Claus.

“I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss the facts of what happened last night,” said Moon. “It’s true that, similarly to the first incident, there was a fire set from the inside of the building. This time, unlike the first incident, the fire was quickly controlled and caused minimal damages.”

“Yeah, if you call blowing out half the windows in the east wing ‘ _minimal_ ,’” Yuta muttered to Taeyong, who elbowed him sharply.

“Regrettably,” said Moon, “the Opus Building’s security was indeed breached last night. Our systems failed. Someone got in. But,” he made a solid three seconds of eye contact with a camera streaming to enormous screens on Yuta and Taeyong’s either side, “nothing was taken and no essential documents were compromised. The harm to the Opus Building was strictly physical.”

“I call bullshit,” said Yuta.

Taeyong glared him. “What, why?”

“Because it’s cooler if essential documents were compromised.”

“I don’t know why I asked you to come here with me. You’re so annoying.”

“I understand,” Moon was saying, “that the people of Neo City are troubled by this event, especially since it feels reminiscent, or perhaps even like a continuation, of a time we thought we were past, where similar incidents were plaguing the city throughout the latter half of the winter. I’m talking about the robberies in District 127 and the Dream Quarter, the Public Library fire where several dozen people were injured, in addition to the issues affecting the Opus Building during that time.”

“He says ‘issues’ like he’s talking about bedroom problems he’s having with his wife and not an entire arson,” whispered Yuta.

Taeyong hissed back, “Sorry my man doesn’t use incendiary language that spreads fear and panic! And by the way, that was uncharacteristically heteronormative of you to say. Moon isn’t even married.”

“I thought he was married to you.”

“You thought right!”

Another voice over the loudspeakers caught their attention, and they turned to their left where a reporter was standing up. “President Moon, is it safe to assume that the perpetrator of this attack may be the same person thought to be responsible for the other incidents you mentioned, due to the reappearance of fire, which many people consider his signature?”

“I think it’s never safe to assume anything,” said Moon coolly, “especially in difficult times like these.”

“Oh my god, slay,” said Taeyong.

“While the reappearance of fire in these events is troubling and is actively being investigated, at this time we just don’t know how many individuals are responsible for these incidents or if they are connected. Yes?” Moon said, turning to another reporter.

“Mr. President, can you confirm that NSB officials are looking into the possibility that these attacks are the work of mainland extremist groups trying to gather information on Neo City’s security?”

“We’re looking into many possibilities,” said Moon. “Yes?”

“Mr. President,” said the reporter he’d pointed at, accepting the mic passed to her, “many believe that the recent failures to protect the Opus Building reflect last year’s reorganization of the NSB, where many of Neo City’s best law enforcement officials were relocated to other parts of Esem. How do you respond to residents of Neo City who are concerned that your policies benefiting the mainland put the island at risk?”

Yuta rolled his eyes and Taeyong said, “Fucking idiots.”

“Of course it’s natural in times of turmoil,” said Moon, shifting from his stern posture back to an informal half-bent podium-grip, “to look outward for the cause of the turmoil rather than exploring inward. However, I can assure the residents of this great city that the breaches will only make the NSB stronger, as we investigate the weaknesses in the Opus Building’s security that allowed this to happen and improve them for the future,” Moon said. He turned to Ahn Han Geun. “Director Ahn, would you like to add a few words?”

Ahn nodded and stepped forward, taking the place at the podium that Moon left. “Thank you, Mr. President,” he said.

“Ugly,” said Yuta. “Blech.”

“You try looking that good when you’re on your second half of a century,” said Taeyong, stepping on his foot.

“I won’t have to try. I’ll look a hundred times as good as this toadstool.”

“What do you have against AHG? Aside from the fact that he’s not as sexy as the president?”

“I just don’t vibe with him,” said Yuta, shaking his head as Ahn talked stiffly into the microphone. “Bad jujubes. Yucky.”

Taeyong made a face at him. “You’re like a child with vegetables.”

“I love vegetables.”

“Christ’s sake.”

“Still,” Ahn was saying, “all of the crimes do appear to share a common factor, which is, as was discussed earlier, the use of fire as a weapon.” The crowd whispered, and more phones came out to record. Moon was frowning. “This factor ties the individual popularly known as ‘Pyro’ to each of these crimes. The injuries, not to mention property damage, caused by this individual have been alarming, and even more alarming is the fact that we are as yet unable to identify him.”

“Director Ahn,” a few reporters shouted from the front amid the rising hum of the crowd. He ignored them. “Fortunately, the National Security Bureau is now in the final stages of development of a program specifically designed to combat this exact type of terrorism.”

“ _Terrorism?_ ” said Yuta. Reporters and people in the crowd were shouting. Ahn said over them, “The program, referred to until now as the Mercury Project, has been in development for years, and was highly classified for much of that time. But the public has become familiar with its members in recent months.”

“Oh my god,” said Taeyong.

“Huh?”

“Is he talking about them?”

“Who?” Yuta said, and it dawned on him just before Ahn turned around and held out an arm towards the side of the stage and they appeared. One by one, masked, coming onto the stage and standing next to Ahn. People jumped and shouted, phones waved, so Yuta had to stand on tiptoes to see. Ahn was clapping while they stood next to him, each of them dressed head to toe in black, with the white sun emblem of the city on their chests. The tallest one, the first person to have come onto the stage, was waving, while the second had their arms crossed and the third was whispering in the ear of the fourth, who stood straight and still.

“These four,” Ahn was saying into the mic, “make up a unit of the military that was originally designed to supplement the Secret Service, assisting with national security tasks such as gathering intelligence and criminal investigation. However, in recent months, the timeline of the program was accelerated to make them available to fight the terrorist attacks plaguing Neo City.”

Yuta glanced at President Moon, who stood with his shoulders squared at the side of the stage. His face was nearly expressionless. His eyes were just slightly narrowed, as if he were squinting into the sun, but the day was clouded over.

“Director Ahn, may I clarify—is this the same group known as the ‘Fighting Four,’ including the Hammer, Kinetic, Hypnos, and Sparrow, who saved dozens of lives at the Public Library fire and fought the criminal Pyro on multiple occasions? If so, is it true that they have superpowers?” a reporter asked.

One of the masked people on stage was laughing into his hand. Another, the first person in line, squared his arms over his head as if to show off his muscles. Some people in the crowd cheered and he flexed harder while Ahn said, “Those are the names the city has given them, yes. Let’s have the Hammer give us a wave,” and the first person in the line brought his arms down in front of him and flexed his muscles again. “Hypnos, say hello,” said Ahn, prompting the second person, a woman, to wave briefly. “Sparrow,” continued Ahn, and the third person jumped a bit. “And Kinetic.” The fourth person in line raised a hand.

The crowd was in hysterics. Reporters were shouting. Yuta and Taeyong both had their phones out. “Is this for real?” said Yuta.

“I have no idea.”

“Director, how do we know that these are really the same people we saw using superpowers to fight Pyro?” another reporter was asking. “The city has long speculated that the Fighting Four were vigilantes or otherwise unattached justice-seekers. If they are truly members of the NSB, why didn’t weren’t they revealed earlier?”

“For their protection,” said Ahn. “For some time, they weren’t ready to go public. But due to the havoc that has recently been wreaked on the city by the person you’ve all dubbed Pyro, we were forced to launch the final phase of the program earlier than planned. And as you can see,” he added proudly, giving them a sweepingly fond look, “they have more than risen to the occasion.”

“Director Ahn, is it true that—” “Director, would you call this—”

“One at a time, please,” said Ahn. Yuta swiped message alerts off his screen. _Are you still at the press conference??? Is this article legit? are u there right now? CAN YOU SEE THEM?_

Someone had asked Ahn to prove that they were really the superheroes. “That’s not necessary,” he was saying. He pointed at another reporter. “Yes.”

“Director Ahn, seeing as the public is already reluctant to trust the government with their safety due to recent events, don’t you think it would be prudent to show that these people are truly—”

“To give a demonstration—”

“—to demonstrate the rumored abilities—”

A few gasps went through the crowd as the fourth person, Kinetic, reached his hand over the reporters’ heads and suddenly a police car on the far side of the street rose into the air with an enormous clanking groan. There were a few muted shrieks. “Please don’t be alarmed,” said Ahn calmly into the microphone, “you’re all quite safe.”

“Oh my fucking god,” whispered Taeyong.

“Holy shit,” said Yuta.

The empty police car drifted over the heads of the assembled crowd. As it drew closer to the stage, the stunned stillness broke down again into shouts and noise. “Director Ahn, how is this possible—” “Director Ahn, could we have a comment from the superheroes—” “Director Ahn, can you prove that this is not staged or a trick?”

Kinetic’s head turned a fraction of a degree towards the reporter who had asked the last question. “Oh, shit,” said Taeyong, and Kinetic’s fingers unbent, as if he were letting go.

The car dropped over the stage, prompting screams. Without flinching, the Hammer raised his arms and caught the car neatly above his head.

The screams turned to full-throated, exhilarated cheers. Yuta and Taeyong joined in, clapping furiously. Taeyong was jumping up and down. The Hammer leaned forward and slowly removed one hand from the bottom of the car. The roar from the crowd was thunderous. The Hammer put a hand in front of his face—he was shushing them, one finger over his lips. The crowd grew quiet. The Hammer nodded and with the one hand, he tossed the police car up into the air. It spun 180 degrees before he caught it with the other hand. Everyone screamed with delight. The Hammer swayed the car, balancing it, and then stood there making peace signs with his free hand.

“Now,” said Ahn, “you’ve seen that…” but he fell silent when more cheers rose at the sight of Sparrow breaking into a run from the edge of the stage. With a single jump, he was on top of the car on top of the Hammer. The Hammer took two steps sideways to account for his momentum while Sparrow straightened his knees and waved blithely to the whistling crowd. The Hammer, steady now, looked left and right exaggeratedly, as if he were trying to figure out where Sparrow had gone. He turned all the way around and put all his weight on one leg so his ass stuck out, glancing behind him coyly. Everyone laughed and clapped.

“How do you think I apply to be their secretary,” said Taeyong.

“What?”

“What I was trying to say is, how do you think I apply to be the Hammer’s fuckbuddy.”

“You’re foul.”

“Do you SEE his ass?”

“I see it, I’m just not a degenerate. I’m more curious about how he’s actually doing that shit than I am about when I can get his dick in my ass.”

“Careful who you’re calling a degenerate, or you won’t be seeing that copy of Love Poem anytime soon.”

“Okay, god, okay. I take it back.”

Ahn was standing near Kinetic and Hypnos, muttering. Kinetic lifted the car out of the Hammer’s hands. Sparrow spun around to raise his shoulders at him in a “ _What gives?_ ” motion. Kinetic ignored him, moving the car back over the crowd to where it had been before. Sparrow remained on top of it, waving at people below him, and just before it hit the ground, he took a great flying leap to land squarely on the stage again.

“HE CAN FLY!” said Taeyong.

Yuta said, “No he can’t! He obviously jumped.”

“Do you have eyes? He flew!”

“Flying isn’t humanly possible.”

“And _that_ is?” said Taeyong, pointing at the stage where Sparrow was effortlessly skipping over the heads of the other superheroes, Moon, and the security officials.

Yuta watched Hypnos duck and the Hammer playfully grab for Sparrow’s foot even though he was far above him. Kinetic, on the other hand, didn’t flinch. For some reason Yuta thought of Winwin, the way he gritted his teeth through stitches. Through the broken rib the other day. He never balked or recoiled, even when his knuckles went white.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Ahn, gesturing grandly behind him, “your Fighting Four!”

The noise of the crowd was overwhelming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here they are...them...they are here. feel free to drop any guesses about their identities that would be fun :)
> 
> potential triggers in chapter 7: burns, mentions of death


	7. Chapter 7

“Well he said the science of it would all be explained in the press release, but it just made everything more confusing,” Yuta could hear Yeri saying as he dragged his feet back to Taeyong’s desk late the next night. The press conference was all anyone had been talking about for the last 36 hours. “‘ _Biologically enhanced_ ,’ like, yeah, we can see that, but how?”

“The wording is intentionally vague,” said Jaehyun. “They want us to think we know how it works, but they don’t actually want to tell us.”

Taeyong was leaning over his desk to look at Mark’s phone, which their heads were clustered around. “Well no shit. They’re not going to be like, oh, we injected them with plutonium. They don’t want us trying that shit at home.”

“I still can’t believe these are government people,” said Yeri. “This whole time I was cross-stitching Hypnos on ‘fuck the police’ tee shirts. She _is_ the police.”

“Hey,” said Mark when he saw Yuta, dropping his phone on the counter around Taeyong’s desk. They all raised their heads and fell silent, turning towards him. “You okay?” Mark said.

Yuta put down his clipboard. “Y’know.”

Taeyong came out from behind the desk. Yuta accepted his hug. “You guys did the best you could,” said Taeyong.

“Yeah. I know.”

“Need any help with the paperwork?” said Yeri.

“No, it’s all sorted out.” Their quiet was heavy. Yuta hated these kinds of days. He shook himself. “Quick, somebody show me a meme to cheer me up.”

“I got one!” said Jaehyun, jumping forward and shuffling through his phone. He presented the screen to Yuta, who couldn’t help but chuckle. It was President Moon’s face, screencapped straight from the viral video of his expression at the appearance of the Fighting Four yesterday morning. Neither Yuta nor Taeyong had noticed at the time, but for a good two seconds, Moon had looked shocked when Ahn Han Geun brought the Four onto the stage.

“This is a good one,” admitted Yuta. “This is going to live longer than the Kinetic arm meme from last month.”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Taeyong, who was still standing close to Yuta. He nudged the candy jar towards Yuta. “This is historic. It’s the first time anyone has ever caught Moon slipping.”

“Do you guys really think AHG planned all that without telling Moon?” said Mark.

“For sure,” said Yeri. “Did you see how smug he was? He did it to make Moon look stupid.”

Jaehyun said, “Why would he want to make Moon look stupid?”

Taeyong said in Yuta’s ear, “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Yuta nodded and took a candy.

“I don’t know,” said Yeri, “but why else would Moon have been so appalled to see his little projects walk out onto the stage?”

“More like AHG’s little projects,” said Mark. “Maybe Moon didn’t even know anything about it.”

“What do you think, Yuta?” said Jaehyun, putting a light hand on his shoulder.

Yuta looked up from the candy wrapper he was playing with. “What? I wasn’t listening.”

Mark and Yeri exchanged glances. Jaehyun said, “Hey, you should go on break. Watch some YouTube videos or something.”

“He can’t,” said Taeyong. “He has a patient.” He went back behind his desk, shuffling through some papers.

“I can take them,” said Jaehyun.

Taeyong shook his head. “Yuta’s requested.”

Yuta knew who it was before taking the clipboard Taeyong held over the counter. There was only one person who ever requested him.

“Your favorite patient,” said Taeyong, “back at it again for more caregiving.” Ling Winwin. Ah, god damn it, what was he doing back here.

“Thanks,” said Yuta, taking the clipboard with him to the waiting room. Burns. Typical. Winwin was in his usual spot in the corner, half-asleep, head nodding. Yuta realized when he saw him how much he’d missed him. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, sat in the chair next to Winwin and said, “Hey.”

Winwin jerked awake, looking around wildly. Then his eyes settled on Yuta. “Ahem. Hi.”

“You know, Winwin,” said Yuta, “I’m starting to think you’re a little obsessed with me. Showing up at my work all the time, asking to see me. Didn’t I tell you to stay away the last time you came?”

Winwin cracked a smile. “It’s been like two months.”

“Something you’ve got to understand,” said Yuta as he led him through the double doors, “is that time is relative. I’ll give you an example. If you take a shower every two months, then yes, that’s a very long interval. If you show up at the emergency room every two months, that’s reason to believe you might be on a government watchlist.”

“Oh no,” said Winwin, “you’ve uncovered my secret.”

Yuta held open the door to the patient room. “Tell me what happened.”

“Um,” said Winwin, “burn on my arm.”

“Again.”

“The last time was this winter.”

“It’s the third time in five months.”

Winwin shifted on the patient bed. “I…I’m clumsy.”

“How did it happen?”

Winwin offered his finger for the heart rate clip. “My brother was cooking, and he didn’t see me and he kind of walked into me with a hot spatula. You’re not going to believe me, but it’s true.”

“Winwin,” said Yuta, “come on, I believe you.” He removed the heart rate clip and picked up the clipboard. “I just want to get the whole story when I ask these questions. It’s what nurses do.”

“I know.” Winwin was quiet for a minute while Yuta wrote down the numbers and put the vitals monitors away. Then he said, “Are you okay?”

“Hm?” Yuta turned around. “Yeah. Living my life, jobbing my job. Can I see that spatula burn you were talking about? What was your brother even cooking?”

“It doesn’t look like a spatula,” said Winwin, pulling up the sleeve of his tee shirt. Yuta went to remove the bandage on the back of his upper arm as Winwin said, “And it was fried rice.”

Yuta considered this. The blistering did look more consistent with contact with a hot surface than actual fire. “When did this happen?”

“Last night,” said Winwin. “Uh—two nights ago. I don’t remember.”

Yuta gave him a skeptical look. “You don’t remember?”

“I think…two,” said Winwin, “nights ago.”

The night of the most recent Opus Building fire. “Winwin, I thought you learned your lesson about coming in immediately after an injury. Do I need to sit you down for a PowerPoint? Or maybe I should get Dr. Bae to lecture you.”

“Is it bad?” said Winwin.

“No,” said Yuta, gently replacing the bandage, “you got lucky. It’s first degree, nothing too scary.” He threw away his gloves. “Let me get you some new bandages and ointment. How about pain meds?”

“No thanks.”

Yuta knelt in front of the cabinets beneath the sink. He pulled out the burn ointment. “I’ve changed my bandages every day, though,” said Winwin.

Yuta said, “You learned from the best.”

He stood up and piled the stuff on the counter. Winwin said, “Yuta.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Yuta took a deep breath. He was trying his best to be chipper. He’d made sure to tease him, to throw in a joke every two or three sentences. “Yeah, I am. Thanks for asking. Are you sure _you’re_ okay? What I mean is, how do you not want pain medicine right now?”

“Because you seem,” said Winwin, “a little off.”

Yuta laughed and sighed at the same time. “Perceptive and persistent, huh. I’ve had a long day, yeah. But I’m all right. I’m going to put on some ointment, okay?”

“Mhm. What happened?”

“What?”

“Today. In your day.”

The muscles in Winwin’s arm tensed at the sting of the ointment. Yuta lightened his touch. “Emergency room stuff. Nothing I can’t handle. You know I can’t legally force you to take pain meds, but if I threatened and intimidated you, would you take some? Over-the-counter meds. One single Advil. Please. That’s all I ask.”

“Fine,” said Winwin.

“So begging works,” said Yuta, attempting a cheeky smile. “Noted.”

Winwin watched him put on a new bandage. Then he said, “Well—you’re a good nurse. You’re good at your job.”

Yuta looked up. “Thank you.”

“You’re good at putting people at ease,” said Winwin. “And, like, showing you care. It makes a difference.”

Yuta applied a strip of tape onto Winwin’s arm, leaving the bandage unsealed so Jungwoo could look. Why was Winwin saying all that? It was bringing the tears back. Breathe, breathe. “That’s sweet.”

Winwin said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean…to…”

“It’s okay.” Yuta wiped at his eyes. Breathe. He brought medicine down from the cabinet. “There was a car crash today. We lost a kid in surgery. It—” He cleared his throat. “It’s sad. But it happens.”

“I’m sorry,” said Winwin.

Yuta handed Winwin a pill and a cup of water, trying to look fine. “You didn’t do anything.”

Winwin knocked back the medication and took Yuta’s hand. “I’m still sorry.”

Yuta blinked a few times. He had expected Winwin to give his hand a quick squeeze, or to pat it reassuringly, but he didn’t. He was just holding it. Yuta’s thumb rested against his knee. Yuta cleared his throat again. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Mm.”

“How’s your rib?”

“It’s good,” Winwin said.

“Good like you’re at 100%,” Yuta said, “or good like you’re in a constant state of dull agony, but you pretend you feel no pain and go about your day like normal because you’re Ling Winwin?”

That little smile, amused and almost indulgent, Yuta had missed that too. “100%.”

“Great. You’ve really got to stop doing that, by the way,” said Yuta.

“Doing what?”

“Waiting two days to come to the ER because you were too busy pretending you were fine and everything was great.”

“You do that too,” said Winwin.

“What? I never wait two days to come to the ER. In fact, I always make it a point to be here at least five minutes before my shift starts.”

“No,” said Winwin, “the pretending you’re fine and everything’s great part.”

“I don’t do that that much. Really,” said Yuta. “Nurses…nurses just have to be a little brave sometimes.”

Winwin nodded, two faint lines creasing his forehead. He’d never looked at Yuta like that before. Carefully. His gaze, and the warmth of his hand, made Yuta feel like he’d inhaled helium, only it had gone to his feelings instead of his vocal cords. Yuta tried to remember if there was something else he needed to be doing. “You know all about being brave, though. Having to come to the hospital every four seconds to get some part of your body fixed.”

Winwin scoffed. “It’s never that bad.”

“Yeah, I’m dreading the day you come in here with a life-threatening injury.”

“I won’t.”

“You swear?” Yuta said. Winwin had broken eye contact and was looking over his shoulder. Yuta said, “Seriously, I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Mm,” said Winwin.

Yuta followed his eyes to the TV. There was a commercial for the Fighting Four playing. “Ooh! Want to see? I’ll unmute it for you,” said Yuta.

“No,” said Winwin, “don’t. It’s fine.”

“Fine, I’ll unmute it for me,” said Yuta, picking up the remote. Winwin had let go of his hand when Yuta took a few steps away. Yuta regretted having reached for the remote at all, but then the TV was unmuted, and a song was playing while the Hammer punched at the screen and his name slashed across the background like a sound effect written out in a comic book. “ _Break the limits, we’re superhuman in this moment!_ ” the song jingled.

Yuta did a little dance. “Hey, it’s catchy!”

Winwin made an “ugh” noise.

“Oh, come on. They’re a team of superheroes, what’s not to like?” said Yuta. “Look! There’s Hypnos!” he said as she flashed across the screen, face masked like the others and her black ponytail swishing, two fingers out in a martial-arts pose. The song went, “ _If you wanna feel it say yeah!_ ” and the commercial ended, with their four silhouettes in combat stances above the words “FIGHTING FOUR: FOR YOU, FOR ME, FOR NEO CITY” in block letters across the bottom.

“It’s all a bunch of government bullshit,” and Winwin.

Yuta muted the TV again as a commercial for pet food started playing. “Government bullshit, huh?”

“They put these guys on steroids and teach them gymnastics and all of a sudden they’re superheroes?” Winwin said. “And now they’re everywhere, in commercials, on subway ads. It’s all NSB propaganda.”

Yuta paused. “Okay, I see where you’re coming from about the propaganda. But have you seen what Kinetic can do?”

Winwin’s eyes dropped. “Yes.”

“How do you explain away that one? Because that’s not steroids,” said Yuta.

Winwin looked at his dangling feet. “I don’t know.”

“I never knew you had such strong political opinions,” said Yuta, picking up the clipboard and making a couple check marks.

“I don’t,” said Winwin.

“Sure, sure.” Yuta pulled open the door. “I’ll send Dr. Kim in, okay? And thanks—for—the things you said. They meant a lot.”

Winwin nodded.

“ _Break through it all_ ,” sang Yuta, badly paraphrasing the Fighting Four song as he went out the door, “ _we’re so superhuman, yeah_ ,” and Winwin broke into embarrassed laughter.

Yuta gave Winwin’s clipboard to Irene and went back to the desk. Yeri and Jaehyun had gone with patients, but Mark and Taeyong were still there. “Hey,” said Taeyong, holding out a piece of candy to him as he approached, “feel any better?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, good, really?”

“He held my hand,” said Yuta, stopping next to Mark, whose eyebrows went down.

“Huh?” said Taeyong.

Yuta gestured vaguely over his shoulder and said, “Ling Winwin.”

Taeyong and Mark looked at each other. “Uh,” said Mark, “that’s nice, but why?”

“He,” said Yuta, “he could tell I wasn’t…like normal and I told him I had a bad day and he just held my hand.”

Mark started to say something, but Taeyong cut him off. “That’s cute. Yuta, I don’t get out till late, but you should come over to my house tonight to watch a movie and relax a little.”

Yuta took the candy out of his hand. “Sure, but don’t expect me to hook up with you.”

Taeyong rolled his eyes. “No, dumbass. I want to talk to you about all this.”

“All this?” Yuta said. “All what?”

Taeyong refused to elaborate until 3am that night after their shift, when they were both nestled among the blankets on his couch with fried chicken and strawberries between them. They had spent the subway ride home discussing whether the central theme of _How to Train Your Dragon_ was believing in yourself or finding your soulmate, and when they couldn’t agree they had asked Mark, who had said, _no, imbeciles, the movie’s about dismantling prejudices, everything else is secondary,_ which had prompted a whole new wave of discourse. At the end of all this was an agreement to disagree, as well as a concession from all sides that such a nuanced and layered film could not be reduced to a single moral or message.

“Still,” said Yuta, submerging a strawberry in chocolate, “if you look at the lines that get repeated in the script, they’re mostly reflections of how Hiccup and Toothless—”

“We already talked about this! I’m tired!”

“Yeah, I was just saying. It proves my point.”

“Ehhhh. Hey, don’t drip chocolate on my couch.”

“Does it look like I’m trying to drip chocolate on your couch?”

“It looked like you’re not being careful about dripping chocolate on my couch.”

Yuta put his hand under the strawberry as he transferred it to his mouth. “Happy now?” he said, munching.

Taeyong leaned an elbow against the arm of the couch. “Sure.” He watched Yuta drop the strawberry top of his plate and reach for another. “Yuta,” he said, “let’s talk about today.”

“Oh yeah.” Yuta twirled the strawberry so the excess chocolate dripped off. “What about it?”

“It’s just like,” said Taeyong, hesitating the slightest bit and then forging onward, “you don’t think you’re getting a little too attached…?”

Yuta was about to bite into the strawberry, but he stopped. “Huh?”

“Well you’ve always leaned towards the empathy side of the empathy versus detachment scale,” said Taeyong.

“Uh huh…”

“Which is a good thing, it makes you a good nurse.”

“I know,” said Yuta, shifting forward.

Taeyong said, “I’m not—I’m not saying you’re not doing your job well. I just, like, wanted to ask about it, because you don’t usually let patient deaths affect the care you give other patients. In fact, I know you never do. Even though that stuff hurts you more than it hurts most of us.”

“Affect whose care?” said Yuta. “What are you talking about?”

“Well,” said Taeyong, “like, Winwin’s. I mean, it’s weird to me that he ended up in a position of giving emotional support when it should be the reverse. I’m not saying—”

“What, when he held my hand?”

“You said he could tell you were upset,” said Taeyong. “If it’s at that point, you need to let me know, not—”

“No.” Yuta shook his head, putting down the strawberry. “No, it wasn’t like that. He…we’re…”

“You’re what?” said Taeyong.

Yuta struggled for the right words. “We’re…like, friends at this point, the guy comes in like all the damn time, and I wasn’t moping or anything, any other patient wouldn’t have noticed. It’s just that he, he’s…familiar enough with me to know when something’s wrong, and when he kept asking about it, I didn’t see any point in lying…”

“But Yuta, that’s exactly what I mean,” said Taeyong. “That level of familiarity… You’ve been through the training, you know what I’m talking about. There’s a line you shouldn’t cross.”

Yuta stood up. “So you’re saying I’ve crossed the line, or what?”

Before he finished, Taeyong grabbed for his wrist and said, “No, I’m not. I’m saying you’re getting close to it, and I’m just, like, wondering if you have any plans to back it up a little, because you can’t provide optimal care when you’re emotionally invested.”

Yuta scoffed and Taeyong continued, “You get mentally drained faster, physically drained, and your judgment is compromised. I don’t mean you specifically, I mean everyone. I’m not the only one who’s concerned. Mark is too.”

Yuta pulled his wrist out of Taeyong’s grip, but he sat back down on the couch. “Why are you so concerned now? What happened to cheering me on when I gave him my number and hoping he would text me?”

“That was before it became clear that he was going to be an actual permanent fixture in the ER,” said Taeyong. “And the city wasn’t going crazy back then, I mean it was starting to, but it wasn’t like this.”

“Like this?”

“The fires, the attacks—”

“Taeyong—what? He doesn’t have anything to do with any of that, you’re not—”

“I never said he does, but Yuta, it’s not normal that he comes in this often,” said Taeyong, his hands held out pleadingly, face in a rare expression of earnestness. “I’m sure he’s very sweet and nice, but you _know_ he’s not getting severely maimed by a different household object every two weeks. It just doesn’t happen. He’s getting these injuries because he’s involved in something dangerous.”

“Number one, you don’t know that,” Yuta said, and Taeyong moaned and started to speak, but Yuta went on, “but suppose you’re right, what do you want me to do? Avoid him? Transfer him to someone else even when he requests me?”

“No,” said Taeyong, hanging his head a little, “I just want you to take a step back. That’s all. So you don’t get burnt out caring for him.”

Yuta folded his arms, looking out the window. Taeyong pushed a few strawberries around in the bowl.

“I think I like him,” said Yuta.

“What?”

“I mean I know I like him. What I mean is, I think I really like him.”

Taeyong groaned. “YUTA...”

“I swear I’m not saying that because I didn’t hear anything you just said,” said Yuta. “I’m saying it because I _did_ hear you, and you’re right, it’s not normal that he’s in every two weeks, and I’d like to step back but—it’s—hard.”

Taeyong put a hand over his eyes and sighed loudly.

“I know,” said Yuta. “I _know_.”

Taeyong looked around exasperatedly. “Well, do you want me to take him permanently off your rotation?”

“I mean, if he requests me and you tell him I’m not available but then he sees me getting another patient from the waiting room…”

“Yeah.”

Yuta rested his head in his hand. Taeyong dipped a strawberry in chocolate and held it close to Yuta’s face. Yuta obliged and gave it a chomp.

“We’re okay, right?” said Taeyong.

“Hm?”

“Like, you’re not mad about any of the things I said?”

Yuta swallowed the strawberry. “Oh, no, I’m not. We’re good.”

“Okay, good. I don’t like fighting with you. Zero out of ten,” said Taeyong.

“Aw,” said Yuta, holding his arms out. “Hug.”

Taeyong leaned over the chicken and strawberries and squeezed Yuta’s shoulders. Yuta rubbed his back. “Okay,” said Taeyong, sitting back.

“Feel better now?”

“Yeah. That was the first time we ever fought.”

“All best friends have fights sometime,” said Yuta, making Taeyong smile. “It wasn’t even really a fight.”

“True. More just me being an overly concerned parent,” said Taeyong.

“That’s how I know you have my back. And you were right anyway.”

“Just promise you’ll be careful,” said Taeyong, pulling a blanket over Yuta’s socked feet.

Yuta patted Taeyong’s arm. “I will.”

Taeyong finished tucking Yuta’s toes under the blanket. “Good. Okay, now let’s do the best friend thing where you tell me all the things you like about your crush.”

“Really? Can I?”

Taeyong said with a tone of mock-exhaustion, “Yeah, go ahead, or I’ll feel like all I did was yell at you and be unsupportive.”

“Okay, well, you were being supportive,” said Yuta, picking up another strawberry. “But first of all he’s literally a Greek god.”

“Yeah. He’s a beautiful man.”

“I get shook every time I see him. I think these days I get more shook than I used to get. But anyway, that’s not everything. He’s really sweet. It’s hard for him to be sweet, but he tries to do it anyway,” Yuta said. “And there’s this one thing he does that’s really cute. Like, usually, he ignores my jokes completely, but then once in a while, he plays along with them or jokes back. And it’s so cute because he’s always all stiff and then sometimes you catch him loosening up, you know?”

Taeyong was halfway through a chicken wing. “Mm. ’S cute.”

“Yeah. But normally he’s got this really, like, intense way about him. You know, you’ve seen him. It’s really…” Yuta ran out of words.

“You think he’s hot because he’s mysterious.”

“No! Not exactly…”

“Yes you do. You know what, you have a type,” said Taeyong, licking his fingers and reaching for more chicken.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re literally describing Kinetic,” said Taeyong.

“Ahhhhh,” said Yuta, because that thought had been in the back of his mind all day. It had been in his mind for a while now—he’d even teased Winwin about it the day he had come in with the fractured rib. Still, he’d never taken the idea seriously before.

Taeyong chewed. “Why ahhh?”

They had similar heights, similar builds. Winwin came in with injuries every time the Fighting Four made the news, and he always reacted strangely when Yuta brought them up. There was even the time his brother had called him a different name. Sicheng. _Involved in something dangerous_.

“Ahhhh…hhhh,” said Taeyong again to get Yuta’s attention.

“Ah. Ah,” said Yuta, blinking the thought away. Impossible. “Just, uh, yeah. Maybe you were right. That I have a type.”

“I am right.”

Yuta said, “Except, with Kinetic, like, I’m just a superfan. I don’t necessarily want to make out with him. I don’t even know what he looks like.” Even as he said it, the words sounded strange. Like they might not be true.

Taeyong gnawed the last of the meat off the chicken wing. “That doesn’t stop me from wanting to suck the Hammer like a lollipop, why should it stop you?”

“Ew, shut up.”

They talked a little more and then put on _How to Train Your Dragon_. Still, the thought was there, creeping to the forefront of Yuta’s consciousness. It didn’t make sense; couldn’t be. Coincidences. He was overthinking.

He fell asleep on Taeyong’s couch. He startled awake only a few hours later, the next morning at early light. His dream had woken him up, but he couldn’t remember what it was about. He only remembered that it was violent, and bright, and the whole time he was afraid of losing someone, of being unable to keep them from getting hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey if you're reading this you're hot
> 
> potential triggers for chapter 8: cuts, blood, stitches, bombs, explosions, civilian casualties, death (yeah it's about to get serious my friend)


	8. Chapter 8

Two evenings later, Yuta was on a run in District 127, enjoying the way the May sunlight filled the shadowed space between the skyscrapers with a glassy purple glow, when his phone started to buzz aggressively in his hand. He came to a stop, kicking a foot up on one of the waist-high terra cotta flowerpots that lined the sidewalk. Ah. Just texts. He’d thought someone was calling him because of the quick successive vibrations. He stretched for a moment. He’d only been out for ten minutes, and the evening was cool enough that he hadn’t yet broken a sweat. He scrolled through the previews on his homescreen. Mark, Mark, Jaehyun, an unknown number. Mark had messaged asking if he was in District 127 right now, something about if he was close to the Neozone. Jaehyun had sent a link. The unknown number had only said, _Hi Yuta?_

Yuta swiped open the phone just as another message came in from the unknown number. _This is Winwin_.

He dropped his phone. It landed in the planting soil around the flowers. He snatched it up, brushed it off, and typed back, _winwin!! just the person i wasnt expecting to hear from! whats up?_

_I need your help,_ said the reply message. _I have a cut on my leg and it needs stitches, but I can’t go to the hospital right now. Can you come to Weishen?_

Yuta started to sprint in the direction of home halfway through reading the message, and then slowed to type back, _winwin i live in district 127 itll take me at least a half hour depending on where in weishen you are. has the bleeding stopped? you need to go to the hospital_.

He was almost home. He stopped at a light. He’d get his wallet, a jacket—

A message came back. _Yuta, it’s Winwin. Those texts were from my brother. He took my phone. Everything’s fine. Sorry for bothering you_.

Yuta swore loudly enough to receive a shocked look from the lady waiting at the light beside him. He called the number, running across the intersection at the green light. The phone rang and rang and then finally, Winwin picked up. “Yuta?”

“Winwin, are you hurt?”

When he spoke, his breath was short. “No. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound like it. What happened?”

A few seconds before he answered again. “Nothing.”

“You can barely talk.” Silence. “Tell me where you are and I’ll call an ambulance for you.”

“No,” said Winwin, voice ragged, “please don’t.”

“Winwin, you’re—”

“Yuta, please.”

Yuta paused on the landing outside his apartment door, holding onto the handrail. His legs burned from taking the stairs two at a time. He got control of his breathing and then spoke.

“Tell me where in Weishen you are.”

Winwin started to say something, but Yuta cut him off. “I’m not calling an ambulance. I’m coming to you. But you have to tell me where to go.”

Winwin was quiet. A voice said a few urgent words in the background. Yuta could hear Winwin’s breathing shift—rough, sharp, like he was hurting. He said, “Do you have time?”

“I have all night,” Yuta said. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

The address was in West Weishen, the area where Weishen bordered District 127. It was largely a warehouse neighborhood, but there were still some high-rise tenements from the seventies that housed much of the city’s blue-collar workforce. Yuta got there just as the streetlamps were flickering on. He’d made it in 20 minutes running—at least five minutes faster than it would have been if he’d waited for the subway. The windows at either end of Winwin’s apartment floor were open, allowing cool air to wander down the hall. He found the number Winwin had told him and rapped loudly on the door.

Voices inside ceased. There was a long moment of silence, then a creak behind the door. He was about to knock again when he heard, “It’s him,” and the door swung open to reveal Winwin’s brother Renjun. The first thing Yuta saw was the cut on his forehead, dark with dried blood, a smear of what might have been dirt underneath it. “Come on,” said Renjun, beckoning Yuta inside. Yuta stepped through the door, and Renjun shut it behind him.

“Thank you for coming,” said Renjun.

“Yeah.” Yuta followed him down the dimly lit hall. There was a closed door to the left, a small bathroom to the right. The space was small, sparse, the walls largely bare.

“I’m sorry,” said Renjun, looking over his shoulder, “for pretending to be S—my brother earlier. I couldn’t think of anyone else to ask for help.”

“No,” said Yuta, “I’m glad you texted,” and the hall opened into a small room lit by a single yellow lamp. On one side was a kitchenette; on the other was a table, and a TV on the ground, and a gray couch. Winwin was on it. He saw Yuta and put his hands on either side of his body, starting to push himself up.

“No, no, no,” said Yuta, quickly kneeling next to him and putting a hand on his shoulder, “stay where you are.”

Winwin was in his blue sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants, left leg elevated on top of two pillows. He was still breathing fast through his nose. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Yeah, well, I came. Can someone tell me what’s going on?” said Yuta, looking up at Renjun, who stood behind him with his arms crossed.

Renjun nodded at Winwin’s leg. “Biking accident. He got slashed by a wire.”

“And you couldn’t go to the hospital _because?_ ” Yuta said, reaching for the first aid kit on the table behind him, which seemed to have been bought ten minutes ago, still sealed shut with a price sticker.

“The bikes were stolen,” said Renjun.

Yuta wanted to argue that this was no reason not to go to the hospital, but it would be pointless—this was all a lie anyway. “Help me roll up his sweatpants. Do you have any brighter lights? I need to be able to see, open those window shades.”

“No,” said Winwin.

Renjun half-sighed. “Sicheng, we can open the—”

“No.”

“Winwin,” said Yuta, “I can’t help you if I can’t see the wound.”

A second passed and then Renjun said, “I’ll get the other lamp,” and disappeared down the hall. Yuta said to Winwin, “Seriously, what’s going on?”

Winwin’s eyes were closed. “What Renjun said.”

“Don’t lie this time.”

Winwin opened his eyes. His face was streaked with something—dirt, soot—and there was blood on his hairline. His baby blue hoodie, though, was perfectly clean. “I can’t tell you right now.”

“Yeah? Then when?”

Renjun reappeared with the lamp and said, “Here,” plugging it into the wall. It lit up with bluish light, brighter than the lamp across the room. Yuta gestured for it. “Bring it close.”

“Uh huh,” said Renjun and pulled it as near as the cord would allow. Together they gingerly rolled back Winwin’s pant leg over a bandage that was soaked through with blood. Already, it was all over Yuta’s hands. He bit back a noise of alarm and went to the sink. “Are there plastic gloves in the kit?” he asked Renjun over his shoulder as he washed his hands.

“Yeah.”

Yuta dried his hands on a threadbare towel next to the sink and took the gloves that Renjun held out to him. “Winwin, have you taken anything? Any pain meds?”

“No,” said Renjun.

“Renjun,” said Winwin, “go to Seulgi’s.”

“What? Didn’t we just—I’m not fucking going,” said Renjun.

“Now.”

“So _he’s_ allowed to stay,” said Renjun, pointing at Yuta, “but I have to—”

“I said now,” said Winwin.

Yuta glanced at them as he went through the contents of the first aid kit and pulled out a needle and surgical thread. They were glaring at each other, Winwin unwaveringly, Renjun with the helpless scowl of someone losing an argument. Winwin said, his voice low and halting, “Do you want this to be for nothing?”

Renjun’s eyes, Yuta suddenly saw, were filled with tears. For a second he just stood there, fists clenched at his sides. He started to say something, stopped, pulled a jacket off the back of a chair, and walked out of the room. A minute later, the front door opened and closed.

Yuta had the needle threaded and was opening a bottle of iodine. He’d worry about all this weird shit later. The cut was more important right now. “Winwin, I don’t have any anesthetic. It’s going to hurt.”

Winwin’s eyes were closed again. “Okay.”

“I’m taking off the bandage, all right?”

When Yuta saw the cut, a visceral panic rolled over him, from the top of his head down through his body and out into his hands. For half a second, he was lightheaded. It was bad. Started several centimeters above Winwin’s knee and continued down over the side of his shin, almost to his ankle. The blood—had it hit an artery? He took a deep breath and began to clean the wound. Sixteen sutures at least. He’d seen worse. Much worse. But this was Winwin.

“All right,” said Yuta, “just relax. We’re going to get you stitched up and then you can rest, okay?”

“Mm.”

“Do your best not to tense your leg muscles while I’m doing the stitches, okay?”

“Mm hm.”

“Great. You’re doing great. I’m starting now. This is going to take a few—”

Winwin inhaled sharply and his leg stiffened when Yuta made the first suture. Yuta grabbed his knee to prevent him from moving his leg. “Okay. You’re all right. I know it hurts, but in a few minutes it’ll be over. You’re a champ, Ling Winwin. You’re a fighter. You’re going to be fine.”

“Mm hm,” said Winwin, breathing shallowly now.

“That’s the attitude I like to hear,” said Yuta as he made the second suture. “Would you rather I keep talking, or be quiet?”

“Talk,” said Winwin, “please.”

“Okay, no problem. You’re super lucky I wasn’t at work when your brother texted. Then I really would have just called an ambulance.” Yuta laughed. “Luckily for you, I worked the night shift last night and was off all day. It was really nice, too, I spent the afternoon sitting outside a dumpling stand and reading at the market in Chain Square. Then I went on a run, and then I got to come here and see you, so, all in all, perfect day.”

“Thank you,” said Winwin.

“Shh, you don’t have to answer me. You don’t have to thank me. I’m happy to help. Just focus on breathing. Slowly. Good, like that. Hey, this is already starting to look way better than it did two minutes ago. Keep breathing. In for two, out for two, yeah? One…two. One…two. One…two. Yes. Nice. Perfect. You know, I’m having déjà vu right now. Haven’t we done this before? Oh yeah,” Yuta prattled as he wiped more blood away and kept stitching. “When you came in with that hip laceration. So you’ve already had plenty of practice with breathing deeply. I don’t need to coach you through it anymore or anything. You’re already a pro.”

He blathered on through the rest of the stitches, telling Winwin about the book he was reading, about his friends at the hospital and the ongoing discussion around _How to Train Your Dragon_. His phone was vibrating in his pocket through it all, but he barely noticed after the first few minutes. “So I think it’s really cool,” he said as he made the final stitch, “how all these subplots feel important, and they have weight, but they don’t distract from the most important relationship in the story, which is Hiccup and the dragon, and how they have this symbiotic thing going on, they can accomplish more if they’re together than if they’re alone.”

Done. He allowed himself a sigh of relief and turned to Winwin, who was already looking at him. “Finished. That’s it, Winwin, you’re all done. You did it.”

Winwin’s pretty eyes were fixed on Yuta’s face. Maybe they had been the whole time. He wasn’t smiling, but the tension in his forehead and mouth were gone. “You did it. Actually.”

“All I did was sit here and sew,” said Yuta, cleaning the rest of the blood off Winwin’s leg. There was blood on the pillow too—that would have to be dealt with later. “You’re the one who just white-knuckled your way through eighteen stitches with no anesthetic. That’s metal as fuck.”

“Yuta,” said Winwin, and Yuta looked up at him again. Earnestly, tenderly, even, Winwin said, “Thank you.”

Yuta was overwhelmed with an impulse to kiss him, just on the forehead, or for a second on the lips, or something. Just so he would stop thanking him as if the thing Yuta wanted most in the world wasn’t to protect him. “You’re welcome. I meant it when I said you don’t have to thank me. I, I’d rather be here helping than be someplace else not knowing you were hurt.”

Winwin watched Yuta lift his leg a bit so he could wrap a bandage around the ointment-slicked stitches. “I’m sorry,” said Yuta, “this is going to scar pretty heavily. The cut was a little jagged. You wouldn’t have gotten away with a perfect mend even if someone with more suturing experience than me had done the job.”

“No,” said Winwin. “You were perfect. And—” He grimaced as he tried to sit up. “—I already have plenty of scars…so.”

Yuta smiled, getting up to throw the trash away and wash the needle and scissors. “Right. What’s one more. They make you look more badass anyway. What are you sitting up for? Just lie down and rest. Let’s get you some water. How long as it been since you ate?”

“Yuta,” said Winwin, “I need you to go now.”

Yuta put the scissors down in the sink. “What? Why?”

“I appreciate everything you did. But you have to go home.”

Yuta rinsed the soap off his hands and went to the couch. Winwin was breathing slower. He didn’t look as drawn as before. Thank god. “Sorry, maybe you forgot I’m a nurse? We do this thing where we monitor patients after significant blood loss to make sure they don’t pass out and stuff…”

“I’m serious,” said Winwin.

“You can’t be alone for recovery,” said Yuta, shrugging in mock-regret. “I need to make sure you’re stable. Get your blood sugar and hydration up, help you walk back and forth from the bathroom, make sure there are no complications in the first few hours…”

“Can you listen to me?” said Winwin. “This—this is not a good place for you to be right now.”

“Winwin, _why?_ ”

Winwin gave him an urgent, almost pleading look. Yuta shook his head. “Look. If you tell me what’s happening, if you tell me the truth, why you’re covered in dirt but you put on clean clothes to make it look like you’re not a mess and why you told Renjun to go somewhere else and what _really_ cut you, then I’ll leave. I will.”

Winwin held his gaze for a long moment. Yuta didn’t look away. Finally Winwin let out a sigh through his nose and lowered himself back on the couch. Yuta stood up. “I’ll get you some water. Or do you guys have any, like, sports drinks?”

Winwin said, “What are sports drinks?”

Yuta turned around to look at him from halfway across the room. “You are one weird dude, aren’t you,” he said.

Winwin blinked blankly.

“Do you mind if I look in the fridge…?”

“No.”

There was nothing in the refrigerator except an apple, half a jar of kimchi and a box of what looked like leftover takeout. Could be worse. “You think you could stomach an apple?”

“Maybe half,” said Winwin.

Yuta sat on the floor next to the couch, sharing the apple slices at Winwin’s insistence. Yuta asked who Seulgi was, and Winwin said a family friend. Yuta asked when Renjun would come back, and Winwin said later. He admitted that his leg hurt, so Yuta tracked down painkillers for him. The medicine cabinet in the cramped bathroom was as woefully understocked as the fridge, with only two Band-Aids, a mostly empty tube of bacitracin, and a bottle of pain relievers which Yuta brought out to Winwin. He found paper and wrote down what Winwin had taken so far in a note for Renjun: two pills, two cups of water, half an apple. Eventually he went up onto the couch to clean the tiny cut at Winwin’s hairline.

“How’s the apple sitting?” said Yuta as he dabbed the dried blood away from Winwin’s forehead.

“Fine,” murmured Winwin.

“You up for a little more food? I could grab something small from a convenience store. Or order delivery.”

“No,” said Winwin adamantly.

“Dang, okay.” Yuta turned the wet towel over. It was more black than red. “Winwin,” he said as he continued to dab at his forehead, “is this soot all over your face?”

Winwin cleared his throat as if he were going to answer, but didn’t.

“Were you in a fire?”

“No.”

Yuta clicked his tongue, then put down the towel and reached for the first aid kit. He dipped his thumb into a tub of antibacterial ointment. Most of it was gone already, slathered over Winwin’s stitches, but there was still enough for this little cut.

“Yuta,” said Winwin, “why are you helping me?”

Yuta put down the tub. He raised his hand to Winwin’s forehead. “Come on,” he said, swiping ointment over the cut, “you know you’re my favorite patient.”

“Why? When I made you drop everything on your day off to come help me and I won’t even tell you why I’m hurt?”

Yuta laughed. “What kind of nurse would I be if I didn’t help you because you wouldn’t tell me why you were hurt?”

“You took care of my leg. You made sure I’m stable,” said Winwin. “All your nurse obligations are filled, you could have left an hour ago.”

“Then I must not be here out of nurse obligation, hm, you ever think of that?”

Winwin opened his mouth and closed it. Yuta continued to smooth the ointment over the cut. Finally Winwin said, “I don’t understand why you’re so kind to me.”

Yuta sighed and lowered his gaze to Winwin’s. Winwin’s eyes seemed to be searching Yuta’s for something. Yuta didn’t know what.

“Because,” he said. “You’re a good person.”

Winwin whispered, “How can you know that?”

Yuta just knew. His instinct had never been wrong before. He took a Band-Aid out of the kit. “A bad person wouldn’t ask that question,” he said as he stripped the back of the Band-Aid off.

Winwin blinked hard, then closed his eyes. “I don’t deserve your trust.”

His voice was strained, as if he were talking around a lump in his throat. Yuta’s heart twisted a little. “I know that you don’t tell me the truth because you feel like you can’t,” said Yuta. He placed the Band-Aid over the cut. “I don’t want to put you in more danger, I just want to help. You deserve to have someone looking out for you. Instead of having to always do it yourself.”

Winwin’s head bent forward just slightly. Yuta’s fingertips flattened the edge of the Band-Aid and continued into Winwin’s hair. When Winwin didn’t pull away, Yuta ran his hand over his hair again, and again, until Winwin had leaned so far into his touch that all Yuta had to do was pat his shoulder for Winwin’s head to tilt onto it. Slowly, Yuta shifted his arm behind Winwin’s neck so he could continue running his fingers through his hair. Winwin was quiet.

Yuta whispered, “Let’s just rest a little,” and Winwin went “Mm.”

Yuta breathed out slowly. Winwin was relaxing, finally. His head was warm on Yuta’s shoulder. It was that feeling again—the light feeling, the helium feeling, with something heavier and deeper opposing it, like a line of harmony underpinning a melody. Yuta closed his eyes.

It was a while before he felt his phone vibrate again and he remembered the stream of texts he’d received earlier. He didn’t think Winwin was asleep, but he wasn’t sure. He worked his phone out of his pocket without jostling him too much and held the phone in front of his eyes.

Most of the texts had been in the hospital group chat. He went back to Mark’s messages that he hadn’t answered earlier.

_Are you in dist 127 rn? Youre not in the neozone are you?_

_Idk if youve heard about the stuff going down there but lmk youre somewhere safe_

Jaehyun had linked him a live Twitter video that had long since ended. Its location was marked _Zero Mile Bridge_ —the bridge at the bottom of the island, the city’s only ground connection to the mainland, spanning fifty kilometers over the bay. Jaehyun had added a few minutes later, _check out ur man saving the whole damn city_ and then after an hour, _where u at king? shoot us a message so we know ur not dead_

A message from Taeyong: _you weren’t near the bridge right???_

Yuta clicked through his messages faster, angling the screen to make sure Winwin couldn’t see it. The hospital chat was a mess and Yuta didn’t feel like scrolling up, so he went to Twitter, where the first thing he saw made his apprehension sharpen to fear. It was something Yeri had retweeted. “ _so heartbroken by this tragedy. rest in peace to the beautiful lives lost, you will not be forgotten <3_”

Yuta scrolled past it.

“ _why are the police acting like everyone doesn’t know this is the work of pyro_ ”

“ _seeing tweets trolling the fighting four for this and that’s honestly so messed up, they did what they could, kinetic and hypnos even got hurt too, they’re braver than u’ll ever be_ ”

_“Am i the only one thinking mainland supremacists rn???? Like the bridge was the last thing connecting neo city to the rest of esem ummmm??”_

_“oh my god… </3 rip”_

“ _I know I’ve been making a lot of jokes about the Fighting Four, but I’m honestly so grateful that they were there today to save lives because as horrible as this is, it would have been so much worse if they weren’t there_.”

_“LITERALLY IM SO OVER IT!! mainlanders want neo city to leave the country so bad they’ll do this shit?? like fine we’re economically and politically better off without u anyway i don’t ???”_

_“Are yall seriously rting separatist headasses right now? Not the time”_

_“esem will miss us when we’re gone lol”_

Finally—a news outlet. He clicked the tweet. “ _At least 16 dead and hundreds more injured in Zero Mile Bridge collapse_.” Collapse? The tweet was from an hour ago. He went to the Neo City Press’s profile and clicked on the most recent article. The picture was awful—an entire section of the bridge blown out, dust over the bay. “ _Death toll at Zero Mile Bridge rises to 28, police chief says._ ”

There had been a fire in the Neozone neighborhood of District 127 and, minutes later, an explosion under the bridge where it joined the highway at the edge of the land. It had happened at rush hour. The president said they were still investigating possible causes. The police chief said it could not have been an accident. The Fighting Four had been there, but Yuta couldn’t tell if they’d been caught in the middle of it or if they’d arrived after the fact. There were pictures of the Hammer and Sparrow amid the smoking rubble, pulling people out of mangled cars, lifting chunks of cement, carrying kids.

Another message came in at the top of his screen, and he remembered his friends. He went to the hospital group chat. Taeyong had just texted, _yo has anyone heard from yuta_

_im alive_ , Yuta replied.

_omg_

_OH THANK GOD_

_dude we were legit worried_

Yuta texted back, _ik sorry i was busy but its nice to know yall were thinking about me <3_, and Taeyong texted him separately again. _sweetie idk if you’ve been on twitter but maybe stay off tonight, lots of conspiracy theorists running their mouths_

 _i saw,_ Yuta replied. _what do people think would be accomplished by separating neo city from the mainland_

_it’s so stupid honestly_

_like we are all in the same country it makes no sense?? im from the mainland how would that work? my family’s there, am i supposed to just be like *shrug* well fuck em_

_i know,_ said Taeyong, _it’s fucked up and fuck the mayor for saying neo city is strong enough to be an independent territory because that’s been proven to be a lie_

_ugh yeah. i have to go_

_take care of yourself bb_

Yuta put his phone in his pocket. His stomach was roiling. He looked at Winwin’s head neatly cradled in the crook of his elbow, between his hand and shoulder. His leg, balanced in front of them on the coffee table, was at a crooked angle. _Kinetic and Hypnos got hurt too._ This was past the point of coincidence.

Yuta leaned his head down and said as softly as he could, “Are you asleep?”

Winwin stirred, lifting his head a little. “Do you want to…”

“No, no. You’re fine. You can stay.” Winwin’s head went back down to his shoulder.

Yuta started to run his fingers lightly over Winwin’s hair again, to soothe his own mind as much Winwin’s. “I have to ask you a question.”

“Okay.”

Yuta kept moving his fingers as he said, “Are you Kinetic?”

There was a little pause, and then, “What?”

“The superhero.”

“Oh, right.” Winwin laughed. “The _Fantastic Four_ or the _Fabulous Four_ or whatever the hell they’re called.” It was forced—the laugh, the glib tone. He was straining underneath it. “If I were, wouldn’t I have government doctors and shit to stitch me up instead of having to ask you to do it?”

“I don’t trust the NSB to take proper care of you any more than I trust Ahn Han Geun to take proper care of his skin,” said Yuta, which got a real laugh out of Winwin, affording Yuta a rush of satisfaction. He went on, “There was an explosion today at the bridge.”

Yuta waited to see if Winwin would react. He didn’t say anything.

“The Fighting Four were there,” Yuta said. “Kinetic got injured.”

“Yuta, I’m not him.”

“Would you tell me if you were?”

“You think too highly of me.”

“Would you?”

Winwin sighed. “No.”

Yuta leaned his head back to the top of the couch. Winwin was completely still. The apartment was quiet except for the sound of his breathing, slightly labored, but even.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyy
> 
> potential triggers in chapter 9: nothin but mentions of things that have appeared in past chapters :)


	9. Chapter 9

Movement at the door, just before dawn, made Winwin bolt upright and Yuta struggle out of a doze. It was Renjun, shocked to see Yuta still in his living room and carrying an aromatic dish wrapped in foil. Yuta realized with a jolt that he had work in an hour. “Eat something,” said Winwin, but Yuta didn’t have time. He took the subway home in a daze, showered, and arrived at the hospital with a thick headache. The emergency room was still processing casualties from the night before.

“Yuta,” said Taeyong, handing a clipboard over the desk to him, “hey. How are you doing? We’re still in a shitstorm here.”

“Yeah,” said Yuta, scanning the papers. “A shitstorm.”

“Did you sleep last night?”

“Huh?”

“You look tired.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“I’m serious, are you okay?”

Yuta wanted to tell Taeyong what had happened, but for some reason, he lied instead. “Uh. Yeah. Stayed up too late on Reddit.”

“Don’t you have a twelve hour shift?” Taeyong said as Yuta turned away and went down the hall. Yuta hit himself on the side of the head to try to clear the haze. He did have a twelve hour shift. He’d get coffee from the lounge in between seeing patients.

Most of the TVs were on all day, and when Yuta muted them to soothe his headache, patients asked him to unmute it again. Every channel was talking about Zero Mile Bridge. The police had gathered eyewitness testimonies about a man, dressed head to toe in black like the Fighting Four but without the Neo City emblem on his chest, entering a subway tunnel underneath the start of the bridge, minutes after the fire at the Neozone warehouse and half an hour before the collapse. The remains of an explosive had been found amid the wreckage, an old-fashioned one that could be set off by flame. The Fighting Four had apparently followed the man into the tunnels after the reports of the warehouse fire, but they were too late to stop the explosion. Late in the morning, Ahn Han Geun went on live television with the president and the police chief saying that the evidence was consistent with previous attacks by Pyro. They called him a terrorist again and asked the public to come forward with any details. Yuta couldn’t stop thinking about Winwin. If he’d been underneath the bridge at the time of the explosion. If his hearing had been damaged, or if he’d been concussed. If Renjun had been there. And the woman they had mentioned—Seulgi. Yuta’s brain circled. He wanted to text Winwin and ask how his leg was, ask if he could bring food by. He’d asked when he left if he could come back to check the stitches in a few days, but Winwin had said there was no need.

By lunchtime, the rush had gone down and the only patients coming in were the ones with the more typical, mundane maladies. Yeri patted Yuta’s head a few times and said she’d take his next two rotations so he could break early—Taeyong had probably said something to her. He mumbled thanks and veered towards the staff lounge, where Jungwoo and Taeyong had the damn TV on again. It was a talk show.

“The really strange thing,” one of the hosts was saying as Yuta collapsed into a folding chair at the table, “is that you can’t get this guy on camera. Dozens of people have seen him at this point. But we still have no clear videos of him, no security footage, photos, nothing.”

“He hides behind fire,” said another host, nodding.

“That’s exactly right,” said a lady with a stack of papers in her hands that she wasn’t looking at. “And it’s also why people have been tying him to the robberies in January. You remember, Chanyeol, when millions of won were stolen from convenience stores, but the security cameras picked up nothing.”

“Yuta!” said Taeyong, looking up from the couch. Yuta grunted. Jungwoo, who was leaning on the microwave, said, “Yuta, you want some fried rice?”

“Thanks,” Yuta muttered, “but I think I’m gonna make ramen.”

“I’ll make it for you,” said Taeyong.

“You don’t have to, Tae, I’ll do it in a second.”

“Do you want spicy spice, or tteokbokki flavor?”

Yuta pointed to the tteokbokki one that Taeyong held up in his right hand and made a lopsided finger heart before putting his head down on his forearms.

“You can see him escalating,” the talk show host was saying. “It started out with the minor thefts…”

“They’re talking about Pyro,” Jungwoo said.

“…then the east wing of the Opus Building was getting eaten by fire from the inside out. Now thirty-one people are dead,” said the host, looking around the well-lit roundtable with his hands held out as if in disbelief. “Next thing you know, he’ll be burning down Empathy Tower.”

“Don’t give him any ideas!” said a younger man, and they all laughed stiffly.

“Eek,” said Taeyong.

“Well I think the most urgent question,” said another woman, leaning forward, “is, you know, who is he and how did he get ahold of a bomb?”

“That’s two questions,” said Jungwoo.

“That’s a great point, Dahyun. It’s been posited that he has ties to an extremist group,” said one of the men. “Either that, or the government has to do an internal investigation, because, when you think about it, this guy has had access to all sorts of things he shouldn’t have access to.”

“Jongin, are you suggesting that Pyro is an NSB member?”

“No, no, not necessarily. I just think it’s important to…”

“Well you know what I’m curious about?”

“What’s that, Chaeyoung?”

“Whoever this guy is, however he’s doing this, right, what are his motivations? Is it just murder and chaos? Is it a political thing? Is he trying to sow division?”

“That’s possible. We’ve certainly seen an increase of contention around the topic of separatism, especially now that something as symbolic of mainland-island unity as Zero Mile Bridge has been destroyed.”

“It’s lucky we have the Fighting Four, then, because the city has rallied behind them like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s right. It’s extraordinary, actually…”

The talk started to run together. Yuta’s head still hurt. Maybe he was dehydrated. He hadn’t drunk anything in the last day except for half a cup of coffee. He hoped Renjun was reminding Winwin to keep his fluid intake up. He’d lost a lot of blood. “Yes, she did, and Kinetic was also hit by a falling rod…” Oh, he probably had a headache twice as bad as Yuta’s right now. And his leg probably really hurt from that rod. “I’m sure he’s pleased, if Kinetic and Hypnos are out of commission for a few weeks, it’ll be that much harder for the Four to stop whatever he’s got planned next.” Sure. But that asshole didn’t know that Winwin had Yuta to help him. Yuta would help all of them. Yuta would get Winwin’s healthy back up faster than…

“Yuta. Yuta.”

Yuta jerked upright in his chair, smacking into Taeyong’s hand which was hovering over his head. “Huh?”

“You were sleep talking,” said Taeyong. He and Jungwoo were both staring at Yuta.

Yuta swallowed down a surge of alarm and laughed. “Oh…really? Didn’t even realize I was asleep, what did I say?”

“Apparently you’re going to rip Pyro apart for hurting Sicheng,” said Jungwoo, spooning fried rice into his mouth.

Taeyong sat down at the chair between them, pushing hot ramen closer to Yuta. “I thought he said ‘ _rip out Pyro’s heart for hurting Sicheng_.’ Is that what you said? Sicheng? Who’s that?”

“Oh, I—” Yuta pulled the ramen closer and started to slurp it even though it was still scalding. “No idea. Maybe I was trying to say s…s…so many people.”

“What?” said Taeyong.

“I don’t know. Hey, would you grab me some water? Please?”

Taeyong sprang up from the table and went to the water dispenser. “How much sleep did you get last night?” said Jungwoo.

“Not a ton.”

“Power nap it. Ten minutes. The ramen will still be here when you wake up.”

“Yeah,” said Yuta, putting his head down again. “Taeyong, can you hit me in ten minutes?”

Taeyong didn’t wake him up for twenty minutes. When he did, there was kimbap and coffee that Mark had brought Yuta from the cafeteria.

Yuta took the subway home, and when he got on, he was afraid that the crowded train car, with its already-breathed air and its rush-hour jostling, would reverse the easing of his headache. A minute later he’d forgotten about the headache and the jostling, because Winwin had responded in seconds to his text asking how he was. _I’m fine now. Thank you so much._ Yuta messaged back, _how many times do i have to tell u theres no need to thank me?? i am at ur service!!!!_

_No, it won’t happen again._

_omg so glad to hear u wont be getting urself hurt again :)_

_I won’t_

_hey im actually going through weishen right now, can i drop off some food? ill only stay a minute if u want me to~~_

_No thank you._

_what have you eaten in the last 24 hours?_

_Our family friend made us samgyetang._

_how do u feel? are you drinking enough water?_

Yuta continued to interrogate him about his physical state all the way home, where he showered again, ate a haphazard dinner of eggs and kimchi, and crawled into bed. Winwin hadn’t stopped texting him, or even paused, though his answers were characteristically clipped. _can i come over to take a look at the stitches tomorrow? i want to make sure theres no infection,_ Yuta said, pulling the covers up over his head.

_There’s no infection_

_the suturing wasnt conducted in a sterile environment and if theres a complication it could be really dangerous for you_

_Not yet_ , said Winwin.

Yuta’s eyelids were beginning to droop. He rolled over and raised the brightness on his phone. _what do u mean not yet?_

_It’s not safe for you to be here yet_.

The hell was that supposed to mean? _when will it be safe for me to be there?_

_I’ll let you know_.

_day after tomorrow_.

_No_.

_friday?_

For the first time all night, Winwin took a few minutes to reply. Yuta’s eyes closed. The vibration of an incoming message made them open again.

_Okay_.

Yuta deflated happily into his pillows. He’d check on him in a few days. A relief. Before that, sleep. _okay_ , he answered. _im going to bed now but ill talk to u soon._ He added a heart emoji, backspaced it, and added it again before sending the message.

_You still haven’t slept? It’s 7pm??_

Yuta was asleep before he could finish typing a reply.

He was tempted to go all-out grocery shopping for Winwin and Renjun before he went to the apartment on Friday, but he limited himself to only as much food as he thought they would accept. Winwin said again that his leg was fine and Yuta didn’t need to come over, but he yielded fairly quickly at Yuta’s _with all due respect your honor i disagree_. An hour later, Yuta arrived at the apartment with a bag of groceries in either hand. As he set the bags down to knock, he heard talking inside.

“Then stop.” Renjun’s voice was raised. Yuta paused. “Just stop and they’ll leave us alone.”

“No, they won’t. You don’t know these people. They—”

Winwin stopped talking. Yuta had knocked loudly. Already, he felt guilty for letting his curiosity get the better of him a moment. Renjun opened the door and Yuta said, “I heard you talking. Just for a second. I’m sorry.”

Renjun wobbled a little, eyes wide. He beckoned Yuta inside and picked up one of the bags for him. “What did you hear?” he said when the door closed.

“Just—”

“Nothing.” It was Winwin’s voice again, clear and strong from down the hallway. “Nothing important.”

Yuta and Renjun’s eyes met briefly. Yuta turned around and took the other grocery bag to the living room.

“Winwin,” he said, dropping the bag at the edge of the kitchenette and going to sit beside him on the couch. “Hey. You look great. How do you feel, how’s the leg?”

“I’ve told you a million times,” said Winwin, his face brightening. There was a blanket over him. His eyes were clearer than the last time Yuta had seen him. “It’s fine.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll be the judge of that. Have you been cleaning it and changing the bandages every…?”

“Every day,” said Winwin. “Just for you.”

“I did teach you well,” said Yuta, pleased. “How’s the mobility?”

“Good.”

“He can walk to the bathroom and back on his own now,” said Renjun, shuffling the plastic bags against the wall.

“Oh, good. Winwin, that’s great. The more flexibility as the scar heals, the better. Of course, you don’t want to overdo it, but people rarely…”

Winwin was looking at the bags. “Yuta, what’s that?”

“That? Just a couple things.” Yuta got up and reached into a bag. “Dumplings,” he said, putting them on the counter. “Uhh, kimbap. Oranges—vitamin C! And some antibiotic cream and bandages, and here.” He lifted a liter of Propel out the bag and went to Winwin, handing it to him. “Look. This is a sports drink. It replenishes electrolytes after fluid loss, like when athletes sweat a lot at training or, you know, when you get your leg chopped open, that kind of thing.”

“Yuta, you shouldn’t have—”

“I know, I know.” Yuta got up to wash his hands and find a glass in the cabinet. “I shouldn’t have. But I did. I think you’re going to like it. I brought you kiwi-strawberry. None of that lemon-lime shit.”

Winwin scowled down at his leg. “It’s too much.”

“I mean, yeah, that’s kind of my thing. Being too much.”

“Well you are.”

“I know it.”

“Hey,” said Renjun, reappearing in the hallway where he had vanished a few moments ago, tightening the straps of backpack. “I’m gonna go out for a bit.”

“Where?” said Winwin sharply.

“To Seulgi’s.”

“Seulgi’s? Why?”

“Because,” said Renjun, making a motion with his hands. “I have stuff to do.”

Winwin frowned at him, mouth half-open. Renjun said, “Well, bye,” and he left.

Yuta finished pouring the sports drink into the glass and put the bottle in the fridge. “Y’all are some weird dudes. I’m just saying.”

Winwin was still frowning down the hall. His eyes focused on the glass that Yuta held out to him. “Thanks,” he said, accepting it as Yuta sat down. “For the food, too. And, like, for coming.”

“I would have come earlier,” said Yuta, “but a certain someone wouldn’t let me. Did you miss me? It’s been four whole days.”

Winwin said, “Yeah. I missed you.”

Yuta’s heart whizzed like a firecracker. “Oh. Really? I missed you too. The hospital is boring without you.”

“Somehow I doubt the hospital is boring.”

“Everywhere you’re not is boring to some degree,” said Yuta.

He blushed a little when he realized how it had come out, but Winwin didn’t look up, only tilted the glass and took a sip.

“Good?” said Yuta.

“Mm.” Winwin drank half the glass. “It’s good.”

“Good!” said Yuta, clapping.

Winwin gestured down the hall with the glass. “If you look in the closet by the door, there’s thirty thousand won in my jacket pocket for the—”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it. And that stuff wasn’t thirty thousand won, are you crazy?”

“Yuta.”

“Have you ever heard of gifts?”

Winwin fixed him with the flat look that Yuta had seen many times at the hospital.

“They’re things that people give other people to show they care about them,” Yuta said.

Instead of smiling as Yuta had hoped, Winwin put the glass on the coffee table and folded his arms sullenly. “You can’t do that when I have nothing to give you.”

The little unconscious pout. He was too much. “Uh—well—make me a card then. No, don’t. It’s enough to be here. With you. More than enough.”

_There_ it was. A smile, accompanied by a little flush. Winwin didn’t say anything, only folded the top of his blanket over. “All right,” said Yuta, “nurse time. Let me make sure these stitches are looking how they should.”

Winwin nodded and drew the blanket back from his left leg. He was in shorts, and the bandages around his leg were clean and new. Yuta said as he unwrapped them, “No fever or weird swelling, right? No colors you don’t want to see?”

“No,” said Winwin, “none of that.”

The stitches were fine, like he’d said—no inflammation around the cut, no ugly drainage. It was going to scar, badly, for sure. But it would heal.

“Okay,” said Yuta, “you were right. It’s looking great. We can take out the stitches in, let’s say, ten days.”

“I’ll take them out,” said Winwin while Yuta put the bandages back in place.

“Yeah right,” said Yuta. “You’d have to get a suture-removing kit from the doctor for that. And you don’t have one.”

“I have scissors,” said Winwin. As he spoke, the blanket slid off his other leg to the floor. For a second, Yuta could see dark bruising. Winwin snatched up the blanket, covering his right leg again, and Yuta grabbed his wrist.

“It’s fine,” said Winwin.

Yuta took the edge of the blanket. Winwin sighed, letting go, and Yuta pulled the blanket back.

Winwin’s shin was blotted with mottled green and blue, the colors of an old but painful impact. It looked like a lucky kind of bruise, the kind that people got by barely avoiding a broken bone. “Winwin,” Yuta said, “you didn’t…”

His voice broke. Winwin looked at him in alarm. “It’s okay,” he said quickly.

“This must have hurt.”

“It—it’s just from the bike accident that gave me the cut. I don’t even notice it.”

Yuta shook his head. “Winwin, you’ve got to stop doing whatever, whatever it is you’re doing, your body can only take so much…”

“It’s just a bruise,” said Winwin.

“It’s not healthy, it’s not…”

Winwin touched his face. “Yuta.”

Yuta turned to him. The color of his eyes was warm.

“It’s okay,” Winwin said. “It’s just a bruise.”

There was an ache in Yuta’s throat, and a knot in his stomach. Taeyong was right. He was in too deep. He couldn’t stop Winwin from getting hurt, and he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to try. It was too late for that now.

“In two weeks I’ll be back to normal,” said Winwin. “Look.” With effort, he moved his feet off the coffee table and stood up. He put his hands out, turning in a clunky circle. “I can already walk. That’s because of you.”

Yuta laughed a little, rising from the couch as Winwin navigated around the coffee table and started to shuffle in the direction of the kitchen. His left leg was stiff, and his hand was outstretched—feeling along the table, now the wall—but he was steady. “See?” Winwin said. He was breathing a little heavily. “And it’s only been four days. Imagine—”

He stumbled. Yuta caught him by the shoulders. Winwin hooked an arm around Yuta’s neck, and Yuta lifted him upright. Winwin’s other arm went around him.

“I got you,” Yuta said, holding him up, so he could feel that he wasn’t going to fall.

Winwin’s grip tightened. His head was in Yuta’s shoulder.

Yuta shifted, so he was holding Winwin to him instead of holding him up. He felt Winwin draw a shuddering breath. He was warm. He was always warm. He was all hard lines and warmth, the smell of soap or detergent. Yuta closed his eyes. All the other stuff, all the worry and secondhand pain, it was worth one second of this.

After a minute, Winwin raised his head off Yuta’s shoulder to look at him. Their faces were close. To kiss him Yuta would barely have to move.

But then Winwin muttered, “That demonstration of my independent mobility didn’t go as planned,” and Yuta laughed a little awkwardly.

“You still made it an impressive distance.”

“I was going to get some of the strawberry-kiwi stuff and bring it back to you.”

“You want some more?”

“No, I wanted to get some for _you_ to have.”

“I’ll have whatever you want me to have.”

“You’re missing the point,” said Winwin. “I wanted to…for _once_ …”

“You wanted to what for once?” Yuta pulled Winwin’s arm over his shoulder so he could walk him back to the couch.

“You’re always doing things for me,” said Winwin, feet planted obstinately. “But I can never do anything for you. Not even this one little _thing_.”

“All right,” said Yuta, pivoting to turn them around, “okay.” He helped him to the refrigerator. Winwin’s hand landed heavily against the counter. Yuta released him, saying, “A full glass, please. And I’ll take some ice if you’ve got any.”

A smile cracked Winwin’s frown. He got a glass out of the cabinet and opened the fridge. Yuta watched while he poured Propel into the glass, fished an ice tray out of a mostly-empty freezer, and tried to crack ice into the drink. The tray was stiff, and the ice didn’t dislodge. Winwin smacked it a few times with the side of his fist. Then he smashed it on the counter. Ice went flying.

Yuta covered his laughter with his hands while Winwin grabbed for ice shards. “What did you do that for?”

“Ice,” said Winwin and mumbled something else. He dropped a few cubes into the Propel and swept the rest into the sink.

“Looks delicious,” said Yuta. “Thanks.”

Winwin shook his head and waved a hand. “I’ll carry it back to the couch for you.”

“Winwin,” said Yuta, “that’s not…” but Winwin was already inching towards the couch with the drink in hand. Yuta caught up with him, hovering a hand at his lower back.

“Okay,” said Winwin as he slowly set the glass down on the coffee table. “Yes. Here you go.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome,” said Winwin, collapsing onto the couch. Suddenly it was apparent how much he had strained to make it across the room and back. Yuta sat next to him.

“Does it hurt?” Yuta said.

“Ehhm.”

It obviously did. Yuta wanted to say that there was no need to push himself like that, he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone. Instead, Yuta took a sip of the strawberry-kiwi Propel. “Oh, hell yeah,” he said. “Hits like an island breeze.”

Winwin, breathing deeply, circled his hands under his leg and tried to heave it up on the coffee table. His eyes squished shut and he stopped.

“Winwin. Winwin.” Yuta started to stand up so Winwin could have the couch. “Just lie down.”

Winwin threw an arm across Yuta’s body. “You don’t have to get up.”

“Okay,” said Yuta, “I won’t. Come here.”

Winwin put an elbow on Yuta’s knee, and Yuta leaned over him to help shift his legs onto the couch. They pulled the blanket up. Winwin’s head rested in Yuta’s lap. He looked up, meeting Yuta’s eyes.

“Any better?” said Yuta.

Winwin nodded, gaze falling. Yuta hadn’t ever seen anyone as beautiful as him. His lashes as he lowered his eyes, his lips as they opened and closed again without speaking. The cut on his forehead was just a thin red line now. In a few days it would be gone.

“What was that movie you were talking about the other day?” Winwin said.

“Hm?”

“The dragon movie.”

“Oh yeah. _How to Train Your Dragon_.”

“Yeah. Um…what happens in that movie?”

Yuta chuckled. “What happens? Ahh, so much. It starts out with this idyllic vista of a little coastal Viking town… Do you want to watch it on my phone right now? It’s on Netflix.”

“Do you want to watch it?” said Winwin as Yuta dug his phone out of his pocket.

“Well I’ve seen it like twenty times,” said Yuta. “Which is enough for you to know that I’ll watch it again at any time of any day. But only if you feel like it.”

Winwin paused. Then he said, “I’ll watch it sometime. But maybe right now, you could just tell me about it?” He half-nodded down at his leg. “It helps. Listening to you talk.”

Yuta could have giggled, or sobbed, but he said, “It helps distract from the soreness? Yeah, okay. No problem. Luckily for you, talking’s my specialty.”

“I know.”

“Yeah. So, the movie has this great opening where the camera, like, flies over the ocean at night up to this little island where the town is, and there are waves crashing on the rocks and stuff. And it’s a little eerie, in a way, but it’s also really peaceful, and the music is this sweet, pretty, like, Viking music I guess? I don’t know what Viking music sounds like but I think it’s that, and anyway…”

His hand went to Winwin’s hair while he babbled. Winwin reached above his head and felt for Yuta’s hand. He found it, and held it, and Yuta trailed off, running a thumb over Winwin’s knuckles. They were rough.

“With the…?” said Winwin.

“Actually, it wasn’t true when you said you never do anything for me,” said Yuta.

“What?”

“Remember the other day at the hospital, when there was a…bad day? You cheered me up. Even though that was supposed to be my job. You made me happy,” said Yuta. “You always—make me happy.”

Winwin looked down. Yuta couldn’t see his face well from this angle, but he could see the creases in his forehead. “You make me happy too,” he said.

Yuta had forgotten the knot in his stomach. All that remained was the tender ache, claiming more space inside him by the minute.

“So the character introductions…?” said Winwin.

“Oh yeah,” said Yuta. “The characters get introduced with all their respective, like, musical themes, and it all happens in this whirlwind five minutes of an action scene. It’s amazing!...”

Yuta talked until he had to leave for work. He hadn’t gotten through the whole movie, and as he stood up Winwin said, “So does he get Toothless back from the Vikings at the end?”

“I can’t just tell you,” said Yuta, picking up his backpack.

“You can just tell me.”

“It’ll ruin it,” said Yuta. “I’ll tell you how it ends next time I’m here.”

“Yuta,” said Winwin in a very low voice. There was something about the way he said it. It shot a tremor of dread through Yuta, faint, but icy.

“What?” he said, kneeling next to the couch.

Winwin didn’t look at him. “We won’t be here. Next time.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“We’re going somewhere new.”

“Oh.” Yuta swallowed. “Cool. Just let me know the new address, and I’ll come by to take out the stitches.”

“I’m also,” said Winwin, “getting a new number.”

“Okay,” Yuta said. “You can text me.”

Winwin didn’t say anything. The dread twisted like a knife and Yuta understood. Winwin was cutting him off. “You’ll text me…?”

Winwin made a motion with his head—a dipping sideways, a kind of not-nod.

“Where are they taking you?” Yuta said, unable to keep his voice calm. “What are they making you do?”

Winwin’s face turned impatient. “They? Yuta, what _they—?_ No one’s making us go anywhere. We’re doing it on our own.”

“The _they_ you and Renjun were talking about when I got here,” said Yuta. Winwin groaned. Yuta said, “It’s the government, right? They’re the reason you’re always getting hurt, and the reason you said it wasn’t safe for me to be here, they’re controlling you, and Renjun, and the Hammer and Hypnos…”

WInwin had raised himself onto one elbow. “Yuta—”

“If you would just tell me, I could help—”

“Yuta!” Winwin’s hands gripped Yuta’s shoulders. “Stop it! You’re wrong!”

Yuta froze. He had never heard Winwin raise his voice before. Winwin’s eyes went to his hands, tight on Yuta’s shoulders, as if he were just realizing now that he had shaken him a little. He released him. “You can’t help,” he said. He fell back onto the couch. “You’ve got it wrong.”

Yuta remained kneeling with his hands uselessly upturned on his lap. Winwin cleared his throat. “You should go to work now.”

“Winwin…?”

“Thanks for the food.”

Yuta stood up. At the edge of the room, he paused. “Is this the last time I see you?”

Winwin didn’t answer for a few seconds, then said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Yuta almost kicked the wall. “Yes, you do.”

Winwin played with the edge of the blanket. “I was getting sick of making you promises I couldn’t keep every time I left the hospital,” he said.

“Winwin,” said Yuta, “the way to stop doing that is to start keeping the promises, not to stop making them.”

Winwin blinked hard at the blanket. “Goodbye, Yuta.”

Yuta turned around and went out down the hall.

After work that night, he texted Winwin, _you don’t have to text me. just don’t lose my number_

Winwin only said, _Thank you for everything_ , and then he stopped replying.

On a run through West Weishen a week later, Yuta climbed the stairs to Winwin’s floor and knocked at his door. There was no answer. He knocked again, harder, then stood with his forehead leaned against the door until an old lady came shuffling down the other end of the hall and he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway if you get ghosted, don't go to their house did unless you have significant reason to believe their life is in danger
> 
> we just passed the halfway point for the chapters...thoughts so far? hope you're having fun and aren't as stressed as yuta is!
> 
> scroll down for warnings about the next chapter~
> 
> potential triggers in chapter 10: lots of fire...uhh some punching and fighting...robbery, hostage situation here we go


	10. Chapter 10

_my messages are still going through, i know ur getting them_

Nothing.

_why havent u blocked me yet ive done nothing but spam u for like 3 days_

Still nothing.

_if i turn on the news one day and see that u died i swear i will fucking kill u_

“A key social skill,” said Taeyong, “is being present during interpersonal interactions. Being ‘present’ means giving your full attention to the other person without allowing yourself to be distracted. Distractions can include phones…”

“I get it. I get it.” Yuta put his phone down on the table. He wanted to put his head down on the table, but there was a plate of untouched arugula in the way.

“You could eat.”

“I’m not hungry. You’re the one who wanted to get lunch before we ran errands.”

“We can’t go grocery shopping on empty stomachs, and by the way, _you’re_ the one who got a fucking salad. Which proves my point, your misery is turning to masochism, we’re out for lunch and you got a _salad?_ ”

Yuta had ordered the salad because it was the first thing on the menu. “Salads aren’t that bad,” he muttered, picking at the greens with his fork.

Taeyong took a forkful of the cranberry-dressing-drenched arugula off his plate and chewed it thoughtfully. “You’re right,” he said, “that one’s pretty good. So why aren’t you fucking eating it?”

“Tummy not want.”

Taeyong pushed his own plate of chicken-broccoli mac and cheese towards Yuta and said, “Tummy need. Eat.”

Yuta tried the mac and cheese. It was okay. He ate some more.

“That’s a good boy,” said Taeyong. “Good job.”

“What am I, a dog?”

“You’d be a cute dog if you were one.”

Yuta laughed in spite of himself. “That’s fucked up. I’m obviously a cat.”

“No, I’m a cat.”

“We can’t both be cats?”

“I guess.”

That morning at work, Taeyong had been complaining that he had to get groceries and go to the bank later. Yuta needed to go to the bank too; he’d been putting it off for a week. Taeyong had decided that they should go together. “After we get the chores done,” he’d said, “we can go to a movie or something as a reward.” He seemed to think Yuta would never run his errands if Taeyong didn’t make him. Maybe he was right. Yuta hadn’t been in a great mood this week. He couldn’t stop thinking about Winwin, wondering where he could be now. What was happening to him. If he was okay.

Yuta followed Taeyong around the grocery store listlessly. Taeyong quipped that he was dragging his feet, and Yuta told him that he’d used up all his bouncy energy at the hospital. “See, that’s my concern,” said Taeyong, putting a can of Pringles in his reusable bag. “Usually you _get_ your bouncy energy at the hospital, like, unless there’s a bad day, and today was a nice day. You had two Lego nose kids on your rotation. Two!”

“One of them was Lego nose,” said Yuta, picking up a bag of beef jerky and putting it back. “The other was acorn nose.”

“And you didn’t get any enjoyment at all out of helping them?”

“Who said I didn’t get any enjoyment?” said Yuta.

Taeyong rounded the end of the aisle and swept half a shelf’s worth of seaweed snacks into his bag. “Yeah, you’re in a perfectly fine and great mood. Totally not brooding at all. Definitely haven’t been acting weird and morose since Zero Mile Bridge.”

“Zero Mile Bridge was a national tragedy,” said Yuta, “who hasn’t been morose about that.” The death toll at the bridge had rounded out at 34. It was the worst disaster of the millennium so far. There had been memorials, fundraisers for the families, for rebuilding the bridge. Though more than two weeks had passed since the collapse, they were still clearing out debris and hadn’t started on reconstruction. No one could get to the mainland right now except by boat.

“I know,” said Taeyong. “You’re right. Do you want to talk about it?”

Taeyong had asked that before. He’d been asking a lot of questions lately. “I’m okay,” said Yuta. “Do _you_ want to talk about it?”

“I want to talk about whatever’s bothering you.”

Yuta reached for a packet of candy and held it out to Taeyong. “This. This is what’s fucking bothering me.”

Taeyong peered closer. “Fighting Four fruit gummies?”

“They’re everywhere,” said Yuta, throwing the candy back onto the shelf. “Just the same four silhouettes in their fake fighting poses, slapped onto everything, first commercials, now gummies?”

“Saw a lady with a Fighting Four bag the other day,” said Taeyong indifferently.

“Look at this!” Yuta was still raging at the candy. “They each have their own little—fuck this. The candy’s in the shape of a hammer, an eye, a bird, a _hand_ and the Neo City sunburst—are you kidding me?”

“Look, I know you ride or die for Kinetic, but can _you_ think of a better symbol for telekinesis than a hand? A brain?”

“That’s not—! It’s not the hand that’s the problem, it’s that they put the sunburst in there with the other ones. Fucking propaganda.”

“Hmm.” Taeyong considered this. “What kind of propaganda? Like, pro-Neo City propaganda?”

“No,” said Yuta, hurrying after Taeyong who was already at the end of the aisle, “like, pro-NSB propaganda. Think about it, the Fighting Four aren’t free, they’re not doing this of their own accord. They’re being controlled by the higher ups. This is just some weird PR game for the NSB.”

“Controlled to do what?” Taeyong took some cheese out of a refrigerator and looked at the nutrition information critically. “Help people? Stop bad guys from doing bad things?”

“To put themselves in _danger_ ,” said Yuta, “duh. Would you do all that for fun?”

“Sure,” said Taeyong. “They’re famous, they’re sexy. Everybody loves them, but they don’t get harassed walking down the street because no one knows what they look like. How is that not ideal?”

As if on cue, the song playing on the radio ended and the Fighting Four jingle kicked in over the loudspeakers: “ _YEAHHHH, superhuman!_ ”

“YES!” Taeyong dropped his grocery bag on the ground and began to dance. “It’s my song!”

“Ugh!” said Yuta. “Euckh!”

“You love it too!”

“No I don’t. And it’s not ideal, not when you’re facing off with the city’s most wanted on the regular and always coming out of it with your body broken!”

Taeyong was ignoring him. “ _Even I surprise myself! I’M SO SUPER EY!_ ”

“Stop singing. Stop—!” Yuta fought to flatten Taeyong’s waving arms to his body.

Taeyong picked up his grocery bag again. “Bet they’re rich as fuck too, look at this Fighting Four strawberry milk.”

“Bet President Moon is filtering all that cash flow through his pockets,” Yuta said.

Taeyong whirled around, shoving the strawberry milk in Yuta’s face. “You fucking take that back. President Moon is an upstanding—”

“Fine, fine, Ahn Han Geun’s pockets then, or Mayor Kim’s, it literally doesn’t matter. You know the Fighting Four aren’t seeing a drop of that money,” said Yuta, snatching the strawberry milk out of Taeyong’s hand.

“Well,” said Taeyong, reaching back into the refrigerator, “that’s probably true. But you know what else is probably true?” He read the speech bubble popping out the mouth of the Hammer’s silhouette. “ _Sweet as I am strong, tasty as I am tall!_ That’s a hell of a testimonial, and coming from the sexy man himself. I’m inclined to believe it.” 

“Don’t buy it, awww, don’t buy it…”

“One for you, one for me.”

“I don’t want one.”

“That’s too bad, sweet cheeks.”

The strawberry milk did turn out to be pretty good. They dropped off Taeyong’s groceries at his apartment, which was close to the bank. Yuta had only finished two-thirds of the milk before the guy at the bank entrance told him he couldn’t take it inside. He glanced again at the Hammer’s “ _tasty as I am tall!_ ” speech bubble, at Hypnos saying “ _It’ll have you mesmerized~_ ,” at Kinetic’s silent shadow. He should have put the bottle in his backpack. The bank man gestured at the trashcan again, and Yuta tossed the milk in.

A stiff wall of air conditioning swept his hair over his forehead as he stepped inside Neo City Central Bank. With it came that downtown bank smell, which Yuta always thought of as a marble smell, even though marble didn’t have a smell. There were four teller windows open. Taeyong beckoned from the end of the first line.

“So what are you really upset about? Because all this bluster about the Fighting Four seems very misplaced,” said Taeyong.

Yuta was digging in his backpack for his bank book. “Can’t I just be upset about injustice and government incompetence?”

“You never cared about politics before all these asscanoes on Reddit talking about how Neo City is fine without Esem and all that stuff,” said Taeyong. “Is this about that, or is there something else going on?”

Yuta dipped his face closer to his backpack. He wanted to tell Taeyong everything that had happened. How Winwin always appeared with burns and cuts after the Fighting Four encountered Pyro, how Winwin had been injured at the exact same time as the bridge collapse, how he and his brother were both covered in blood and soot, how they had left to escape some nebulous danger. How Winwin had held Yuta’s hand and asked to hear him talk because he knew it was the last time he would see him.

“Yuta…?” said Taeyong.

Yuta was going to tell him—the words were already on their way out of his mouth—but he was interrupted by a muffled scream on the other side of the bank. Heads whipped around, and someone screamed again. Taeyong grabbed Yuta’s arm. They could see him through the scattering crowd: a man, masked, all in black, at the third teller window.

“What the fuck?” said Yuta.

“It’s him!” someone shouted. There were more screams. “Get down!” “PYRO!” Taeyong was dragging Yuta towards the doors, but people weren’t getting out—the doors weren’t opening.

“Fuck, fuck—”

A tower of fire billowed nearly to the ceiling of the two-story room and vanished. Everyone dropped to the floor. Yuta’s chin hurt from hitting the cold marble. He lifted his head up a few centimeters.

“Everyone listen carefully.”

The voice was coming from the person in black. It was garbled, almost cartoonish, as if distorted by a cheap voice-changer toy. The room was silent. Yuta felt for Taeyong, who had let go of him in the confusion, and found his arm.

“I need all of you to stay on the floor,” said Pyro. “No talking. No movement.” He turned to the bank employee, who was standing behind the window with his hands up, eyes wide. “Please follow these directions exactly,” he said more quietly to the bank teller. The teller slowly lowered one hand to a note in the document pickup.

“How did he even get in here?” Taeyong breathed. “How did no one see him?”

Yuta was inching a hand towards the phone in his pocket. Taeyong pinched his wrist. Yuta gave his head a minute shake.

“Yuta, _stop,_ ” Taeyong whispered.

“Don’t move,” Pyro said, rounding on the two dozen people flattened on the floor of the bank. “I don’t want to see any cell phones.”

Yuta stiffened, thinking Pyro had seen him. But Pyro took two steps forward and stepped on the phone of a woman huddled in front of him, drawing it towards him under the toe of his boot. He bent and picked up the phone, inspected it for a moment. Then he dropped it back to the floor and smashed it beneath his boot. One stomp, two. The whole bank cringed at the sound.

“You,” said Pyro. His voice was still crackly and muddled. “Stand up. Now.”

The girl looked up at him, face white. He extended his arm so his hand was less than a meter from her head. “I said now.”

She rose from the floor with her hands out away from her body as if for balance. He took hold of her arm and pulled her towards him. “The bank’s alarm system has been disabled,” he said loudly. “The doors have been locked. No one will go in or out until I have what I need. None of you. No police.”

The woman was crying. Pyro looked at the bank teller, who had frozen, and said, “Get the fucking key.” The teller nodded and ran to the drawers behind the teller barrier. Yuta’s mind raced. There must be something he could do. There must be something to do. “No one will get hurt,” said Pyro, “if no one does anything stupid. I don’t need anybody playing hero.”

Just then, a sharp sound whizzed through the bank. Pyro ducked, and shouts went up as someone in the black and white uniform of the Fighting Four careened through the air over Pyro’s head to land beside him with a skidding thud, pulling a wire drawn between himself and the second-story walkway that looked out over the main room.

“Sparrow!” someone yelled.

“The Four are here!”

The cheers quickly turned to screams as flame peeled along the wire and across the room. Pyro had disappeared. Yuta and Taeyong scrambled up from the floor. Chaos was breaking loose as the fire disintegrated, reappeared along a wooden door, went out and leapt again. Figures in black and white were dropping down from the ledge on the second story. Hands pointed and voices screamed the Fighting Four’s names. Yuta looked, and he could see Sparrow, he could see the Hammer—

“Yuta,” said Taeyong, dragging him down against the wall, “we have to get out of here, this place is going to burn.”

“What? We have to help.”

“ _Help?_ That’s _their_ job!”

“The doors are loc—”

“There must be a way out that he didn’t—”

Glass at the teller windows shattered. Pyro was behind it among stacks of paper that were already catching fire. He was looking for something, but he stopped to dodge Sparrow, who had gone over the barrier and made a swipe for him. Sparrow tossed something through the broken window to Hypnos, who caught it and yanked. It was the same silvery wire that Yuta had noticed before, hard to see from this distance, but now easily visible as it went orange with fire and fell apart. Yuta saw the Hammer breaking through the gate at the end of the barrier. Pyro was gone again. Where was Kinetic?

“Yuta! What are you doing?”

Taeyong’s pale face came into focus in front of Yuta. Yuta shook himself. “Sorry. Okay.” He turned around. “Let’s try these doors.”

“They’ve _been_ trying the doors,” said Taeyong, pointing at a group of people trying to ram down an office door with their shoulders. “They won’t open.”

Yuta scanned the room. Fire had eaten across the curtains on the far side and was gathering slowly but surely along the walls. He shouted above the noise, “Let’s get onto the second floor, find a window.”

Some people nearby turned around and a woman shouted, “We can climb up from there!” pointing to the teller desks where the barrier was still intact.

“All right, let’s go, let’s go,” said Taeyong, beckoning to the group that had been trying to break down the doors along the wall. Yuta ran to the people huddled at the front entrance, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Second floor! Go to the second floor!” He started lifting people up from the ground, pointing to the desk.

“Yuta! Come on!” Taeyong shouted.

Just then there was a horrific screeching sound, like metal crashing into metal. Yuta dropped to a crouch. Pyro was sprinting out from behind the teller barrier. Then Yuta saw Kinetic.

He was on the side of the room, levitating a huge shelving unit that he had dislodged from the wall. Kinetic threw it so it landed in Pyro’s path with a crash, and Pyro was a second too slow to escape the Hammer, who hit him, then grabbed him as he went down.

Yuta darted into a corner. On his left, he could see Taeyong gesturing to him as he boosted people up from the tellers’ desk and into the waiting hands of those already on the second floor walkway. In front of Yuta, the Hammer was struggling with Pyro while Hypnos and the Sparrow drew closer, signaling to each other. On his right was Kinetic, limping to the side. Limping on his left leg. He still had one arm extended towards the shelf, and he didn’t seem to notice the fire behind him.

“ _Yuta!_ ”

Taeyong was screaming at him. The last of the civilians had made it onto the second floor. Only Taeyong and the woman remained. Yuta went to make a run for it, but there was another burst of flame close to him, and the Hammer rolled into his way, roaring. Pyro was nowhere in sight. He had just been there, in the center of the room, under the Hammer, and he was gone. The Hammer ran past Yuta, who looked left and right and saw Kinetic kneeling on his right knee, with his other leg at an awkward angle. He was trying to lift the shelf again. The fire was almost on him.

“Winwin!” Yuta said.

Kinetic didn’t look up. The shelf was rising into the air.

Yuta raised his voice. “Winwin! The fire!” Flame licked at his left boot. Yuta went closer. “Winwin, it’s me! _SICHENG!_ ”

The floor shook as the shelf fell to the ground. Kinetic turned to him. Yuta couldn’t see his eyes well through the screen in the mask.

“What did you call me?” Kinetic said.

It wasn’t his voice—the voice Kinetic spoke with. It was clear and undistorted, but it wasn’t Winwin’s voice.

In the next moment, Kinetic saw the flames at his back and dove out of the way. Nearly at the same time, Yuta heard the Hammer, whose commanding tone he recognized from videos on Twitter, shout, “WATCH OUT!” He thought the Hammer was talking to Kinetic. Then he felt an arm fold around his neck.

“Don’t move,” Pyro garbled in his ear.

Yuta tried to breathe. The Fighting Four were motionless in front of him—Kinetic closest, panting, and the Hammer with his knees slightly bent as if preparing to spring, while Hypnos and Sparrow were frozen further away. Pyro’s arm was hooked around Yuta’s neck, one hand holding onto his shoulder. The other arm was aimed towards the Fighting Four.

“Let him go,” said Kinetic.

“Don’t follow me,” said Pyro. He began to edge towards the teller barrier. Yuta’s feet shuffled with his.

“We won’t,” said the Hammer, “but leave him here before you g—”

The Hammer took a step forward, and Pyro turned his hand from the Fighting Four to Yuta. The Hammer stopped, his hands up. “Don’t,” said Pyro.

Yuta felt sick. Nauseous. Not from fear, but from something else.

“Okay,” said the Hammer. “Just don’t hurt him.”

“Don’t follow me,” said Pyro again. He drew Yuta around a burning desk and behind the teller windows. Yuta’s eyes found Taeyong, alone on the walkway where the second floor looked out over the main room. Taeyong was looking between Yuta and the Fighting Four, as if wondering whether they would do something.

Yuta heard a click and looked down. A door next to him had swung open, revealing a dimly lit hallway running left and right. Yuta saw Taeyong mouth the word “ _No,_ ” and then Pyro pushed him through the doorway and into the hall. The main room of the bank disappeared behind them as the door fell shut and a lock clicked.

Yuta turned to Pyro, breathing heavily.

“You fucking idiot,” said Pyro. His voice was still warped. “Did you just lose your mind? Why the fuck would you call him that?”

“Take off your mask,” said Yuta.

“Don’t ever say that name to anyone again, do you understand me?”

“Take off your fucking mask.”

He did. Yuta already knew who would be underneath it. Still, when he saw Winwin’s face, he shoved him. Winwin stumbled backwards. “You’re putting yourself in danger by using that name,” Winwin said, advancing again and gripping Yuta’s shoulders. His voice was normal now. “Is that all you ever do? Put yourself in danger? Is that your thing?”

“Sicheng,” said Yuta.

“I just told you not to use that n—”

“I helped you.” He thought he might throw up. “After you did those things. I made you better.”

“Move.” Winwin spun him around and pushed him. Yuta lurched forward. There was shouting somewhere above and behind them. Winwin’s gloved hands were tight on his shoulders. Yuta wanted to hit him or throw him to the floor, but his arms wouldn’t move.

“Where are we going?” he whispered.

Winwin turned him down a side hallway. Sunlight came in through the small window of a door on the right. “You,” he said, holding the back of Yuta’s shirt in his fist, “are going out.”

Yuta stopped. “Out?”

“Listen to me. They’re going to find you,” said Winwin. “There were security cameras I didn’t disable. They’ll have your face recorded. You’ll tell them that the only reason you used the name Sicheng is because you heard me say it at the hospital. You didn’t know who I really was. You were just doing your job helping injured people. You never came to my apartment. You don’t know my brother.”

“They…” Yuta didn’t understand what Winwin was saying. “You want me to tell them I treated you at the hospital? They’ll know who you are.”

“They already know who I am.” He pushed Yuta towards the door. “Now leave.”

Yuta threw him off and seized his wrist. “My best friend is still in there.”

“He’ll be fine. The staircases at the back aren’t locked.”

“Why didn’t you tell me,” Yuta whispered. “How could you not…”

Winwin flipped Yuta’s arm, hand closing around Yuta’s wrist while Yuta’s grip on him was weakened. He turned the doorknob. “To keep you safe,” he said, “god damn it,” and he wrenched Yuta through the half-open door and out into the sunshine.

Yuta staggered onto the pavement. The door slammed behind him. He turned around and seized the handle, but it had locked. He slammed a hand flat against the door. Then he kicked it. The window was made of clouded glass, and he couldn’t see through. He sank to his knees.

He could still see his face as the mask came off. Winwin’s face. His brown eyes. One of them ringed red where the Hammer had hit him. Sicheng. Yuta had been wrong. He’d wanted to believe in him, he’d wanted him to be Kinetic. He should have known. Should have listened when Taeyong said to step back…

_Taeyong_.

Yuta stood up. He was in a deserted alley. There were voices and smoke rising over the bank. He started to run. From the end of the alley he could see a crowd of people at the back side of the bank, pressing towards it and away at intervals like waves on the shore. Winwin had said the back staircases were unlocked. If Yuta could get in, he could find Taeyong and show them the way out.

As he pushed people out of his way, he saw someone he recognized. It was the woman who had been helping Taeyong get people onto the second floor, tearstained with a phone to her ear.

“Hey!” Yuta fought towards her. “HEY!”

She looked his way and her face illuminated. She grasped behind her. The person who turned around was Taeyong, and his eyes were frantic. He saw Yuta and sobbed.

“Taeyong,” said Yuta.

Their arms wrapped around each other. “Are you,” said Taeyong, “are you okay,” hands patting at Yuta’s back and shoulders.

“Yeah,” said Yuta, and started to cry.

Taeyong held Yuta’s face and kissed his forehead before pulling him into a hug again, saying, “You’re okay, you’re okay. You’re okay.” Yuta cried harder into his shoulder. Sirens echoed them in the distance.

At the police station, they were given water, sandwiches, and cookies. Police were interviewing them one by one. There had been twenty people at the bank, aside from the Fighting Four and Pyro—Winwin—and all twenty of them had made it out unharmed, except for one man who had had a seizure and was recovering at the hospital. The police asked them not to go on the internet until after they had been interviewed, to make sure their memories weren’t influenced by news reports. People were going in and out of the interview room fast—two minutes, three minutes each. Yuta had made a one-minute call to his parents back in Dongbangsingi while a policeman listened, unable to tell them anything except that he’d been at a bank during a robbery and he was safe. Now Taeyong and Yuta were huddled close to each other in folding chairs under a heavy police blanket that smelled musty. Taeyong had asked what happened after Pyro took Yuta out of the main room of the bank. Yuta, watching the policeman chew an oatmeal raisin cookie in the corner, said, “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’ll tell you later.”

“But he didn’t hurt you.”

“No, Tae, I swear. He didn’t hurt me.”

“Why haven’t they told us if they got him,” said Taeyong. “Or if the Fighting Four are okay. They literally haven’t told us anything.”

“Probably because they didn’t get him,” Yuta heard himself say. He bit into the sandwich.

“Why do you think he was there? Did he say anything before he pushed you out the side door?”

Yuta chewed. The sandwich didn’t taste like anything but mayonnaise. “No.”

Taeyong leaned his head onto Yuta’s shoulder. “It’s so weird. Sometimes he shows up just to burn stuff down and kill people. Then sometimes he doesn’t hurt anybody at all. It’s like he doesn’t have an agenda and then he does and then he doesn’t…”

Yuta felt like there was a weight in him, a stack of bricks, hard-edged, flattening his insides, pressing down. Winwin wasn’t the hero of this story. Winwin was the villain. The bridge, the Public Library. All those people. _Winwin_. It wasn’t adding up. Yuta’s mind, unbidden, had been turning up fragments of memories like half-dead fish floating to the surface of contaminated water. Winwin telling Renjun, “Do you want this all to be for nothing?” Renjun saying, “Just stop and they’ll leave us alone,” and Winwin answering, “No they won’t. You don’t know these people.” Yuta had asked Winwin at the bank why he lied to him, and Winwin said it was to keep him safe. But Winwin had told him the truth again and again. “I don’t deserve your trust.” “You think too highly of me.” “You’re wrong.” What if he’d been trying to let Yuta know and Yuta just hadn’t listened carefully enough?

“Yuta?”

Yuta looked at Taeyong, whose brow was furrowed. “Hey. Sorry? What?”

“Sweetie,” said Taeyong softly.

“What were you saying?”

“Um,” said Taeyong, “the Fighting Four. Like am I crazy, or did it seem like they weren’t even trying to help us at all? Like they only cared about getting ahold of Pyro?”

Yuta put the rest of the substanceless sandwich in his mouth. It was greasy. He tried to swallow it.

Taeyong said, “Sweetheart, are you okay? I mean, like, not physically, but…you keep zoning out. Is there…?”

Yuta brushed sandwich crumbs off the blanket. “I’m okay,” he said. “I just keep thinking.”

“Mm hm?”

One crumb was stuck in the wooly threads. Yuta pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. He held it up. “You know the feeling,” he said, “when you’re doing a puzzle, and you’re trying to see the whole picture, and you realize you’re missing a piece?”

Taeyong glanced between the crumb and Yuta’s face. “Uhh…”

“Or a lot of pieces,” said Yuta, and flicked the crumb at the oatmeal raisin policeman.

“Nakamoto Yuta.”

Yuta jumped and turned around, afraid they’d seen where he’d aimed the breadcrumb, but the woman at the door of the interview room just said, “Come on in, we’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

He stood up and went inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my fav chapter 2 write uwu  
> who saw that coming? anybody surprised?  
> also yutae bffs
> 
> scroll down for warnings about the next chapter :)
> 
> potential triggers for chapter 11: mentions of... corrupt government, corrupt police, kidnapping, emotional abuse/manipulation


	11. Chapter 11

On their way out of the police station, they had to be escorted through a crowd of reporters, who were pushing microphones into their faces, shouting things like, “A statement in regards to the robbery at the bank?” and “Would you classify Pyro as an extremist or a terrorist?” They kept their heads down until Taeyong slammed the cab door shut. He told the driver his address, and Yuta added that he’d like to be dropped at his own apartment afterward. Taeyong turned to him, eyes widening.

“I’m tired,” said Yuta.

“Yuta—” Taeyong lowered his voice. “We need to talk about today. What you just went through… For fuck’s sake, you spent more than an hour in the interrogation room with the police.”

“We will talk about it, Tae, we will. I know we need to talk about it,” said Yuta, staring straight ahead. “We will. I promise. But not now. I just need to go home.”

“You shouldn’t be alone right now,” Taeyong said. “That was traumatic. Just come to my house, my parents are driving down and making dinner, you can…”

“I can’t right now, Taeyong,” said Yuta.

Taeyong folded his arms, looking out the window. He rubbed the corner of one eye quickly.

“I’m sorry.” Yuta put his head against the glass. “I know you want to process everything with someone who was there, I get that, and I—there are things I have to tell you. But not today.”

Taeyong was still quiet. His eyes were fixed on the worn leather of the seat in front of him. He said, “Yuta, at the bank, what were you trying to say to Kinetic?”

Yuta’s stomach turned to ice. “What?”

“Like, right before Pyro...got you, you were yelling at Kinetic.”

Yuta tried to keep his voice level. “That the fire was right behind him.”

Taeyong “mm”ed, nodded. A few seconds later he said, “Because I thought you said something else. Like a name.”

Yuta said, “What name?”

Taeyong blinked at the seat back. “I don’t know.”

Yuta put his head back against the windowpane. It bumped as the car stuttered over cracks in the road. When Taeyong got out, he ducked down and said, “Text me later. Text me anytime.”

“I will,” said Yuta.

Taeyong started to stand up, then stopped. Yuta reached an arm out for him, and Taeyong climbed back into the backseat to give him another hug.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Taeyong said. His hands patted Yuta’s back like they had outside the bank, as if checking for injuries. “I would have lost my mind if you didn’t get out of there okay.”

“I know. Me too,” said Yuta. “I’m glad you’re all right. Taeyong, we’ll talk soon.” He held Taeyong’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you everything soon.”

Taeyong looked at him and nodded. “Okay.” He patted Yuta’s head. “Yeah.” He got out again and said, “Bye,” and Yuta said, “Love you Tae,” and Taeyong smiled. “Love you too, babycakes. Text me.” Then he shut the door.

Yuta glanced from Taeyong’s receding back to the driver’s blank face in the rearview. Then he got out his phone. The _Neo City Press_. “ _Fighting Four arrived just in time to prevent civilian casualties in latest attack on Central Bank, police chief says._ ” “ _Fire and attempted robbery at bank confirmed to be work of ‘supervillain’ Pyro_.” He clicked, scanned. “ _…whereabouts are currently unknown. Police say they are tracking leads…_ ” He put his phone down, head falling back, air leaving his lungs.

When he got to his apartment, he went to the bathroom and washed his face. He realized his clothes smelled like smoke. He dried his face, reached for his phone, and returned his parents’ missed calls. They were together with his sister, and the three of them sounded hysterical. They thought they should drive to Exos and get the ferry to the island to stay overnight with him. Yuta said no, that route would take them the whole night, twice as long as it used to when they came by the bridge, and they wouldn’t get to District 127 until 4 or 5 in the morning anyway. They didn’t relent, and in fact Yuta’s dad seemed to already be packing up for a road trip in the background of the call, until Yuta mentioned that Taeyong’s parents were driving down from Paradise Heights, at which point his parents calmed down. Yuta didn’t mention that he wasn’t going over to Taeyong’s himself.

After he hung up the phone with his family, he called Winwin’s number. The first call wasn’t picked up. Neither was the second. The third time, Winwin picked up on the first ring. “What the hell are you doing?”

Yuta meant to say something like “ _Explain yourself,_ ” or “ _Fuck you,_ ” but what came out was, “Are you okay?”

“What—?” Winwin’s voice was incredulous, but steady. He didn’t sound hurt. “I’m fine. Stop calling. They’ll be monitoring your phone after what you said at the bank.”

“No,” said Yuta. “They don’t know I said your name. The police didn’t ask me about it.”

Winwin faltered. “It’s still—You shouldn’t be…”

“I want to see you.” Yuta’s knees wobbled, and he dropped onto the toilet lid. “I need to talk to you.”

There was a pause and then, “Why?”

“Why? Because you owe me an explanation.”

“You don’t understand what you’re asking me to do.”

“Yes I do.”

“No, you don’t.” His voice shook. Yuta had heard him short of breath, he’d heard him in pain, but he’d never heard his voice tremble like this. “You’re asking me to put you at risk. You’re asking me to implicate you. Please, this one time, don’t be stubborn.”

Yuta said, “Winwin, they showed me pictures of people at the police station and asked me if I recognized any of them. One of them was you. And I lied. I’m already implicated.”

Another pause, and a cottony sound like a heavy exhale.

“Where are you?” said Yuta.

His voice was steady again. “Meet me at my old apartment at 8.”

“Your old one—?”

“The one you came to before. If you notice anyone following you, don’t come. Just, like, go to a store and go home.”

“Okay,” said Yuta, and Winwin hung up.

When Yuta arrived at 7:48, Winwin was already there. The bruise over his eye had darkened. Yuta walked past him into the apartment. “Why the fuck is it so dark in here,” he said, flipping ineffectually at a lightswitch.

“We didn’t pay electric.”

Yuta turned to face him. The only light came from a candle burning on the kitchen counter. Eerie shadows flickered on Winwin’s face.

“You’re Pyro,” said Yuta.

Winwin was silent. Yuta stepped toward him, and Winwin stepped back.

“You burned down the bank,” Yuta said. “You blew up the bridge and attacked the Opus Building. You set fire to the Public Library.”

“Then why aren’t you afraid of me?” Winwin said.

Yuta took another step forward. Winwin backed into the wall. “Because,” said Yuta, “I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“You don’t know that,” said Winwin. “People always get hurt because of me.”

“Not always. I don’t. Your brother doesn’t.”

“My brother?” Something passed over his face—anger? “My brother almost died because of me. The people at the bridge died because of me. That’s what happens to the people around me.” He pointed at the hallway. “But you can still walk away right now. It’s not too late.”

“Did you do it?” said Yuta.

Winwin wavered as Yuta took a final step closer to him. His voice was quiet in the small space between them. “Do what?”

“The bomb at the bridge,” said Yuta. “Did you set it?”

Winwin stared at him for a long moment. “My fire set it off.”

“I didn’t ask what set it off. I asked if you put it there.”

Winwin shook his head.

“And the Public Library?”

“The fire was an accident,” said Winwin softly.

“And today?”

“I needed something inside.”

“You could have hurt someone.”

He shook his head again. “I wasn’t going to use the fire against anyone. I just needed to intimidate people so they wouldn’t try to call the police before I could get out. Everything would have been fine if…”

“If the Fighting Four hadn’t shown up,” said Yuta.

Winwin looked away. Candlelight played through his eyelashes, making long shadows.

“Right?” Yuta asked.

To his surprise, Winwin put a hand on his chest and pushed him back. “Leave. Get out.”

“Just tell me what’s happening,” said Yuta. Winwin pushed him again. Yuta held his forearms up in front of him.

“Fine,” said Winwin, shoving him. “I’m the bad guy. I’m a bad person. Understand?”

“I know that’s not true—”

“I’m dangerous.” He grabbed at the fists Yuta had raised. “I’m not worth it.”

Yuta threw Winwin off, pulled him in, and locked his arms around him. “Yes you are.”

Winwin’s hands were trapped between them. He struggled, but without conviction. Yuta’s arms went tighter.

“Why won’t you just go?” Winwin whispered.

Yuta loosened his arms enough to look Winwin in the eye, but Winwin’s face was too close, out of focus. “I can’t.”

Winwin started to speak, but before he could, Yuta said, “I spent three hours in the police station not knowing if you’d made it out or if they got you or if you were even alive. And it was like everything had stopped. Or like time was moving forward, but I couldn’t move with it because I didn’t know what had happened to you. I was just stuck.”

Winwin seemed to shrink in Yuta’s arms just the tiniest bit. His hands still rested, in fists, against Yuta’s chest.

“And you know how I felt when I found out you’d gotten away?” Yuta said.

His head shook minutely.

“Like I could breathe.” Yuta tried to look him in the eye, but Winwin wouldn’t meet his gaze. He said, “And you want me to walk out the door and leave you alone, never hear from you again, never know if you’re okay or dead or gone. I can’t do that. I’ll always be stuck in the last time I saw you.”

Winwin’s forehead fell against Yuta’s, and Yuta, seeing a glint on his cheek, reached up to touch his face. He was crying. Yuta brushed a wet tear track off his cheek. Then he put a hand on the back of Winwin’s head.

They breathed together for several seconds before Yuta said, “Come sit down with me?”

Winwin nodded. They went to the couch and sat facing each other.

“Okay,” said Yuta, “now tell me why you keep doing these things.”

“I was one of them,” Winwin muttered, so quietly that Yuta wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

“What?”

“The Fighting Four. There were five of us.”

“How…?”

“The government was doing a study,” said Winwin, “and they wanted kids. They paid our parents. It was only supposed to be a month.” He spoke evenly, almost flatly. “Then they told us a year, then they told us our parents didn’t want us back.”

Yuta sucked in a breath.

“I didn’t believe them,” said Winwin. “My parents wouldn’t…I wanted to get out, but they wouldn’t let me leave. And the others—maybe it was true for them. Some of their parents weren’t good people. For them, we were their family. I was their family.”

“How did no one notice five kids going missing?” Yuta said.

“They can bury anything they want,” said Winwin. “They’re the NSB.”

It hit Yuta then. He’d had a feeling, for a long time, that something wasn’t right. But this was much bigger than he’d imagined. Much worse.

“It was eleven years ago,” said Winwin, “when we joined the program.”

“The program…”

“It was a training program,” said Winwin. “Or they called it a training program. They said we were going to lead the next generation of national security agents.” He was talking faster. “There was training, I guess, but there were these treatments—they put us on medications, and we got sick and got better and sick and better, and then the physical team was getting stronger and faster, and the psychic team was controlling things without trying. And I was…”

“Making fire?” Yuta said.

“No,” said Winwin. He stood up. There was a bag in the corner that Yuta hadn’t noticed. Winwin pulled something out of it, something like a flattish metal tube.

“Winwin?” said Yuta.

He brought the object to Yuta and handed it to him. Yuta turned it over in his hands. It was just small enough to fit inside his sleeve, with a kind of valve or nozzle at one end. The metal glimmered with strange colors in the candlelight like oil in the sun.

“Renjun made it for me,” said Winwin. “Homemade blowtorch, sort of. I used to just use a lighter.”

Yuta dropped it. “What?”

“Fire was never my thing,” said Winwin, picking it up. “I can’t, like, generate it or manipulate it the way everyone thinks I can.” He tossed the blowtorch onto the coffee table. “The technology they use to restrain me—you can’t break it or cut it, but you can burn it. So I carry the torch with me.”

The wires Sparrow and Hypnos had at the bank. “Restrain you?”

“I tried to leave once before,” said Winwin, “when I was nineteen. And I almost got out, because they couldn’t see me. So they realized they had to figure out a way to keep me in view.”

“You…” Yuta remembered the security cameras at the bank, the convenience stores in January. Suddenly it clicked. “You don’t have fire powers, but you can go invisible.”

“Well,” said Winwin, a hint of a smile going over his face, “that was the skill I was supposed to develop. But I only ever got as far as undetectability.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It was like that with most of us. They didn’t get as far as they wanted to.”

“Really?”

“J—uh, the Hammer was supposed to get indestructability,” said Winwin. “Sparrow was supposed to be able to teleport. And Hypnos was supposed to have no-contact mind control.” The smile grew. “Only Kinetic got all the way.”

“How does it,” Yuta said, “like, work, what you can do?”

“It’s like I’m going under everyone’s radar,” Winwin said. “Basically, if I don’t want you to notice I’m there, you won’t.”

Yuta laughed a little.

“I won’t do that to you,” said Winwin. “I never have.”

“I know.”

Winwin said softly, “Okay.”

“So you burned down half the Opus Building,” Yuta said.

“To get out,” said Winwin. “I didn’t want to, but—”

“No, I understand. Doesn’t sound like they gave you much choice.”

“But I got burned,” said Winwin, “and I couldn’t find my family, and I—I stole some money.”

“From the convenience store.”

His voice went small. “I did it more than once.”

“You didn’t know what else to do.”

“Except go to the hospital,” said Winwin.

The hospital. Yuta’s heart wrenched—Winwin had been so scared the first time Yuta had seen him. “Thank god you did,” he said, trying to laugh, “can you imagine how boring my year would have been without you?”

“I can imagine how dead I would have been without you,” said Winwin.

Yuta clicked his tongue. “The other nurses would have helped you.”

“Yeah,” said Winwin, “and the other nurses would have identified me to the police at the station today. You shouldn’t have lied, I already told you they knew my face, you should have just told them you knew me from the hospital…”

A fragment of the panic that had washed over Yuta when the police showed him the grainy photograph was darting through him again now, like an aftershock. He pressed his lips together. He couldn’t have identified Winwin in that moment even if he’d wanted to.

“Yuta…?” said Winwin, lifting a hand.

“You looked so,” said Yuta, “sad, in the picture.”

Winwin’s hand lowered.

“I was mad at you. And scared.” Yuta cleared his throat. “But I knew something was wrong by the time they showed me the photo. Like, I knew I was missing a part of the story. And…well I guess it wouldn’t have occurred to me to do anything except try to protect you.”

“You needed to protect yourself,” said Winwin in a low voice. “After you ran your mouth off at the bank—”

“Winwin, I told you, they don’t know about me saying your real name.”

“He knows.”

“Kinetic?”

“He heard my name, and he asked you what you’d just said.”

“Well if he remembers,” said Yuta, “he didn’t tell anyone, because the police didn’t bring it up.”

Winwin shook his head, exhaling. “Just because he didn’t tell anyone yet doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.”

“So,” said Yuta, looking between Winwin’s good eye and his black eye, “you guys aren’t…you don’t…trust him. Them.”

“Trust?” Winwin’s voice went flat again, the way it had when he talked about the program. “They tried to stop me when I left, and they’ve been trying to bring me back ever since.”

“Oh…”

“They hunt me. They set traps for me. I found my brother, I started working at the library, I was going to forget about it all, and then they found me, and my lighter got out of my hand and…”

Yuta remembered the girl at the hospital, the day of the Public Library fire, saying that the man setting fire to the shelves was being chased. Yuta had assumed he was chased because he had already started the fire. “That’s not your fault,” said Yuta.

Winwin said emptily, “Yes, it is. It was stupid to think I could get a job without them finding me. I put that whole place in danger.”

“No,” said Yuta, “no, you wanted to have something normal. You wanted to move on. They wouldn’t let you.”

“I should have known they would track me down,” said Winwin. “They didn’t just want me back, they wanted me silenced.”

“Silenced?” said Yuta. “About the training program?”

Winwin looked down at his hands. He seemed to toy with the words at the tip of his tongue for a moment before saying, “Yeah, and some other things I heard while I was there.”

“Like what?”

Winwin shrugged vaguely before saying, “A lot of things. That’s why I’ve been going back in. To try to find out. If I can get ahold of something, if I can get ahold of _proof_ …”

“Then you can expose them,” said Yuta, “and you’ll be free.”

Winwin nodded, still looking down.

“Aren’t you proof enough?” said Yuta. “That they’ve been abusing their power? Wouldn’t the others back you up—”

Winwin said, “No. I’m not enough. There’s, there’s more to this, Yuta, and the Four…they’re involved.”

“Involved? What do you mean? In what?”

“They want…” Winwin struggled.

“It has to do with separatism, doesn’t it?” said Yuta.

Winwin looked up at him sharply. For a moment he was silent.

“You’ve told me this much already,” said Yuta. “You can trust me with this too.”

Winwin said abruptly, “You know I hated lying to you.”

“What? No, of course…”

“Because I always trusted you,” said Winwin, “and I wanted to be worthy of your trust too, and I wasn’t, and I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” Yuta caught Winwin’s eye. “Look,” said Yuta, “look at me. Does this look like the face of someone who’s bitter about you lying to protect them?”

Winwin’s tight lips curved up just slightly at the corner.

“No. It doesn’t,” said Yuta. “It looks like the face of someone who understands, and is over it now. Was always over it, actually. And trusts you.”

Winwin looked at him, and Yuta put his hands beneath his face to make a flower-boy pose. Winwin laughed and rolled his eyes. Yuta tilted his head to catch his eye again, saying, “So what else is going on? What do you need proof of?”

Winwin thought for another few moments. Then he said, “Thank you for trusting me. Even though I don’t deserve it after all this.”

“Yes you do, Christ’s sake.”

“Then just,” Winwin said, voice earnest, “trust me on this. I can’t say yet what exactly what they were planning. But once I get ahold of some things, then…then I’ll let you know as much as I can.”

“Okay,” said Yuta. “I will. Trust you on that.”

“Thank you,” said Winwin, and the way he did reminded Yuta of the way he had thanked him the day he first came to his old apartment to stitch up his leg. Gratefully.

“Of course,” said Yuta. “So, like, what happened at the Opus Building? The second and third time there were fires, I mean?”

Winwin said, “I went back for proof. For a file. The first time, I got ahold of it. At least, I think I did—it turned out to be encrypted.”

“And after you got the file, the Fighting Four beat you up outside City Hall?” said Yuta.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

That was the City Hall Brawl. Yuta thought back. The next incident had been the fire in the East Wing. “And then…”

“I went back again for the codes to unencrypt the file,” said Winwin, “but things kind of…got out of hand.”

“By _out of hand_ , you mean half the Opus Building got barbecued,” said Yuta.

Winwin winced.

“They deserved it,” said Yuta with a shrug.

Winwin said quickly, “No one got hurt.”

“Did you find the codes?”

“Not then,” he said, “I only found out where they were.”

Yuta’s mind was working along the timeline as they spoke. As Winwin finished his sentence, Yuta realized. “The bank.”

Winwin nodded.

“Did you get them?” Yuta said.

His lips went up. “Yeah. Renjun’s working on them right now.”

“Renjun? Where, at the other apartment?” Winwin nodded. “So you do have a new place,” said Yuta. “Why did we have to come here then?”

“Well I,” Winwin said, and then, “Just in case…” He sighed. “I came here to try to convince you to forget about me. To keep you safe, I mean. I thought I could…fight you, or hurt your feelings, just enough to make you leave me alone, and I didn’t want you to walk away knowing where he was. I mean,” he said, voice catching, “not that I thought you would ever tell anyone anyway, but I couldn’t risk—”

“Okay,” said Yuta, pretzeling his legs in front of Winwin again. “No, I get it. He’s your brother. Of course. Winwin—”

“I’m sorry that I was ever thinking about—thinking about hurting you or—”

“Winw—”

“I couldn’t do it, I didn’t even want to, but I thought I…”

Yuta pressed his lips to Winwin’s cheek. Winwin made a surprised noise, and fell silent. His eyes were wide when Yuta leaned back.

“When I said I knew you wouldn’t hurt me,” said Yuta, “I meant it. I know you want me to be safe the same way I want you to be safe. Stop apologizing for trying to do the right thing.”

Winwin’s face was still soft and surprised. Yuta wasn’t sure if Winwin had heard anything he’d said. Yuta picked up his hand, felt Winwin’s fingers tighten in response, and said, “Okay?”

Winwin looked up and down, from Yuta’s face to their hands and back again. It occurred to Yuta that he might be in love with him.

“Okay,” Winwin said, voice thin as rice paper.

Yuta threaded their fingers together. Winwin’s eyelashes fluttered a little.

“Winwin,” said Yuta after a moment, “I need you to tell me what happened at the bridge.”

The pretty charmed look fell off his face.

“They had Renjun,” he said.

The sentence didn’t sink in until Yuta repeated it in his head.

“I thought they just wanted to lure me out so they could get ahold of me,” said Winwin. “Turns out they were setting me up to inadvertently set off a bomb. And I did.”

“What happened?” Yuta whispered.

“There was a note in the basket of his bike outside the apartment building,” Winwin said,   
“telling me to go to a warehouse in the Neozone to get him back. He wasn’t there. Just a couple of police officers. I thought it was a trap, like they wanted me to barge in looking for him without thinking, so instead of blasting in all crazy, I went inside imperceptibly. I scoped the place out, snuck up on the policemen, threatened them to make them tell me where he really was…” He stopped.

“The warehouse wasn’t the trap,” said Yuta.

“Yeah,” said Winwin. “They wanted me to go in imperceptibly. They drained all my energy at the warehouse so it would be harder for me to stay under the radar in the subway, which was where the police officers told me to go. There’s this thing that happens, when I use the ability too much. I still get sick from it.”

“It makes you dizzy,” said Yuta, thinking back to the hospital.

“Yeah.”

“That explains the low blood pressure,” said Yuta.

“I have low blood pressure?”

“You always have,” said Yuta. “And low blood pressure makes people real dizzy.”

Winwin nodded. “Well, that…that’s what happened under the bridge. They had Renjun in this room back in the subway tunnels, like a maintenance room or something, but to get to him I had to walk right through a snare of suppressor threads, that’s what they call the technology they use to control our abilities. So I set it on fire. But I was pretty lightheaded and,” he paused, biting his lip, “I—I don’t really know what all I set fire to. I just wanted to get Renjun and get out. We were almost at the opening of the tunnel in Zero Mile Station when the project team showed up, I mean the Fighting Four…”

“Did they hurt you?”

“No,” said Winwin. “They tried to catch me and then the bomb went off somewhere behind us, and everything just started falling down.”

“Your leg got hit by debris,” Yuta said.

“And then you saved my life,” said Winwin.

Yuta gave a half head-shake, half-shrug. “You might have survived. Probably.”

“My leg would have been useless,” said Winwin, “at the very least.”

“How is it now?” said Yuta, hand hovering over Winwin’s left knee.

“Good. Really good. Almost normal,” said Winwin.

Yuta let his hand rest on Winwin’s knee. Winwin looked away again, shyly this time. Yuta smiled. He hadn’t known he could still make him shy. “How do you know they set the bomb?” he asked. “What if it was from something else?”

“It had to have been them,” said Winwin. “They wanted me to start a fire that would spread and set it off. The police guarding Renjun barely tried to stop me, and the suppressor threads across the doorway weren’t even hidden. They didn’t really care about catching me, not before I set the fire. They wanted the bridge blown up and they wanted to blame it on me. That way, once they did capture me, everyone would want me dead as much as they did, and no one would ask questions about what happened to me.”

“When you say ‘them’…”

“Not the project team. The NSB,” said Winwin, “and the police chief and Mayor Kim, and whoever else they’ve got with them. The team…they know what the NSB’s doing, but I don’t think they knew about the bomb. They were as scared as we were when it went off. I couldn’t see their faces, but I could hear them.”

Yuta didn’t care whether the Fighting Four knew about the bomb. They knew the NSB’s intentions, and they knew what they were doing to Winwin, and that was enough. “When you came in with the fractured rib in March—did the Hammer do that?”

“No,” said Winwin, shaking his head quickly. “He wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what?”

“Hit me that hard.”

He couldn’t be serious. “You just told me how he kidnapped your brother and framed you for the deaths of thirty people, but he wouldn’t hit you that hard?”

“He didn’t do those things—”

“Winwin, he allowed them to happen.”

“Well he wouldn’t use his abilities on me,” said Winwin, gripping Yuta’s hand with deliberate firmness. “We don’t do that. We promised.”

Yuta wasn’t convinced, but Winwin looked so sure. “Okay,” he said, “then what broke your rib?”

“I stole a motorcycle,” said Winwin, “and when I came around a corner, there was a police blockade. I pretty much hit the brakes and went flying over the handlebars into the blockade.” He gave a breathy laugh. “It was actually kind of comical. And afterwards they reported it like I’d pulled to a stop and set the thing on fire before slipping away effortlessly, but it wasn’t like that. The motorcycle burst into flames of its own accord after I crashed it.”

A chuckle escaped Yuta in spite of himself. Winwin was right—it was kind of funny. “Renjun and I tried to find the owner of the motorcycle after,” Winwin said, shoulders sagging a bit now, “but we couldn’t turn up a license plate match, so...”

“You were in the middle of trying to expose a government plot,” said Yuta, “and you were worried about finding the owner of the motorcycle you crashed?”

“Just to, I don’t know, drop off some money or…well…”

Yuta sat up straighter, put a hand on either side of Winwin’s face and said, “See, this is what I’m talking about. You couldn’t possibly convince me you’re a bad person or not worth it or not deserving of—of _everything_. God. You wanted to pay back the motorcycle owner. I can’t believe you.”

“Yuta,” said Winwin, face sandwiched between Yuta’s hands, “ _I_ destroyed _their_ bike. It doesn’t make me a good person to want to—”

“No one else with a broken rib and a corrupt government hunting them down would still be thinking about the motorcycle!” Yuta squeezed his cheeks and kissed his nose. “You! Are so! Special!”

“No,” said Winwin, frowning now, hands on Yuta’s wrists, “no. You’re too generous with me. You always are. I’m not…”

“Stop!” Yuta landed another kiss on his cheek. “Stop saying stuff like that! I don’t know what they did to you in there to make you believe otherwise,” he said and kissed his chin, “but you are so brave and so beautiful and so good! You are—”

Winwin turned his face into Yuta’s next peck, catching it on his lips.

Yuta trailed off, and they looked at each other. Winwin shifted forward, onto his knees, offsetting the balance between them. His eyes were dark pools in the candlelight. Yuta tried to find his voice, but it was gone.

“You’re the good one,” said Winwin.

Yuta shook his head, and Winwin nodded, and put his lips on Yuta’s again, so Yuta could feel how soft they were. Just like that, time didn’t exist, and it wasn’t stopped so much as erased.

“You’re the brave and beautiful one,” Winwin whispered, “you’re so beautiful in so many ways I can’t even describe, you’re…”

In the absence of minutes and seconds, the only other dimension to measure was the distance between them. When it closed, that was it. There were no more finite spaces. There were no more limits. Instead, there was everything, everything Yuta hadn’t felt yet or hadn’t let himself feel, surging through him suddenly, soaring out of his reach.

Winwin said one more word, Yuta’s name. Yuta heard it in his voice—everything they’d both been holding back. Suddenly, all of it was eager to be felt and discovered and explored. Winwin’s kiss had been halting at first. Now it was demanding.

As Yuta dropped to one elbow below him, Winwin held Yuta’s head in one hand and braced against the couch with the other. Their mouths lingered and then heaved against each other. Winwin disentangled one hand from Yuta’s hair and touched Yuta’s jaw, then slowly drew light fingers over his chest, his stomach, brushed the inside of his thigh. Yuta gasped, as much in surprise as at the charge in his touch, and the pressure of Winwin’s lips abated ever so briefly. When it returned, his fingertips ran along Yuta’s thigh again, eliciting another moan, and another, almost curiously, until Yuta pushed him back against the couch so Winwin was pinned beneath him now. Winwin looked up at him with wide eyes, breathing heavily.

“Winwin,” Yuta said. He was breathing hard too. “That’s not your real name.”

Winwin shook his head once.

“I know you told me never to say it to anyone else.” The candle had burned low; he could just barely see Winwin’s chest rising and falling. “But can I call you your real name when it’s just you and me?”

Winwin’s eyes closed for a short moment. Then he sat up, drew level with Yuta so he had him in his lap instead of straddling his hips, pulled Yuta’s body against his own, and kissed him. Yuta knew what he was going to say, by the way he kissed him.

“Yes,” he answered. “Please.”

Yuta smiled.

“When all this ends, I’m going to take you to the river,” Yuta said, “like we said we were going to do before everything went insane, and I’m going to call you your real name in front of everyone. I’m going to scream it.”

“When all this ends,” he said doubtfully.

“Sicheng,” Yuta said. He could taste the satisfaction of saying his name. “It will end. And I’ll be here until it does and I’ll be here after.”

His head fell onto Yuta’s shoulder. Yuta tipped his chin up and kissed him, and Sicheng kissed him back, slowly at first, and then with increasing friction that built until it sparked between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sicheng i'm sorry for putting you through all this
> 
> potential warnings for chapter 12: nothing aside from some general stress


	12. Chapter 12

The middle of the night was dark. The candle had burned out, and they’d felt their way to Sicheng’s old room. They didn’t seem to have moved out most of their things. They were curled into each other on his bed. Sicheng hadn’t spoken for a while. His breath was slow on Yuta’s arm. Yuta had been wondering if he was awake for several minutes, or not wondering so much as cherishing the possibility that he was and the possibility that he wasn’t, when he thought he heard Sicheng say his name.

“Sicheng?” Yuta whispered.

“I wasn’t sure if you were asleep.”

“You were so quiet, I thought I was dreaming.”

“You have to promise me something.”

Yuta hemmed and hawed. “Well, that depends on what the promise is…”

“Seriously.”

“Okay, lay it on me.”

He felt Sicheng’s face turn. “You can’t get involved in the whole NSB mess. You can’t try to do something yourself.”

Yuta laughed and turned his head resting on Sicheng’s hand to press a kiss to his wrist. “Myself? I’m not that dumb. I’ll run all my ideas by you first.”

“No, Yuta—”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, but Sicheng, do you think I would make any moves to go after these guys without you? I’m on your team. I’m with you.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Sicheng withdrew his hand to lift himself onto his elbow. His silhouette was just visible against the gray-black light coming through the slatted window. “I mean if something happens to me. You have to stay out of it. Okay?”

Yuta almost laughed again. “How can you ask me to promise that?”

“I’m asking you to understand,” said Sicheng, “that I told you all this so I didn’t have to keep lying to you, not so you could go putting yourself in harm’s way. That includes if…like, if they get me or something, you can’t come after me.”

“Okay, come after you physically, maybe not. I’d get wrecked before I even got inside the Opus Building. But you can’t stop me from telling the city what they’re doing,” said Yuta. “That they need to be investigated. They’re—”

“Yuta.” Sicheng held his shoulders. “We don’t have enough yet. If you start talking without evidence, they’ll bury you. It happened to my parents and I can’t have it happen again to you, understand?”

Yuta closed his mouth in shock. Sicheng put a hand to his cheek uncertainly and said, “I mean…just promise? Please.”

“What happened to your parents?”

Sicheng dropped back onto the bed. Yuta gathered him into his arms and put his chin on the top of Sicheng’s head.

“I don’t know,” said Sicheng into his chest. “Renjun got put in foster care seven years ago. He hasn’t seen our parents since.”

“How did no one…”

“They were from Soshi,” said Sicheng. “My mom had a sister back there, I know, but other than that… I don’t think anyone was here to ask what had happened to them. Except Renjun, and no one listened to a kid.”

“What did he think happened to them?”

“The foster care people told him they were in jail for crimes against the government or something. I don’t know.”

“Sicheng…that’s horrible. I’m sorry.” Yuta stroked Sicheng’s hair. Sicheng was quiet. “How did you find him?” Yuta asked. “Renjun?”

“I went back to our old house after I got out,” said Sicheng. “I asked the neighbors. Almost everyone I used to know was gone. But Seulgi’s parents were still there.”

“Seulgi, your family friend.”

“Mm. We used to play with her and her brother in school,” Sicheng said. “She was the only person who kept in touch with Renjun. She told me she was worried about him after all the…”

“After the government disappeared his entire family?”

Sicheng’s exhale was a little like a laugh. “Her mom didn’t really recognize me, but she recognized my name. I guess she figured I was an old school friend trying to reach out. So she gave me Seulgi’s email, and I found her, and she helped me find him.”

“Thank god,” Yuta said. Sicheng tucked himself in closer to Yuta. Yuta cradled his head. He had the urge to wrap him up, hide him away. Keep him here forever, not let anything touch him.

“Hey,” Yuta said.

“Mm.”

“I didn’t say this before, but thank you for telling me everything.”

Sicheng’s muffled voice went, “Mm.”

“I didn’t think it could be you,” said Yuta.

“What?”

“Pyro.”

He felt Sicheng cringe in his arms. “You don’t like the supervillain name, huh,” said Yuta.

“Would you?”

“No.” Yuta kissed the top of his head. “Mr. Invisible would have been cooler.”

“More accurate, yes. Cooler, no.”

“It never even crossed my mind,” said Yuta. “You know you’ve basically got the whole city thinking you’re fireproof. And you always came into the hospital with burns. Like, how could the fire guy inflict burns on himself?”

Sicheng’s eyelashes brushed against his collarbone. It tickled a little. He didn’t speak. Yuta thought he had closed his eyes.

“Were you surprised?” Sicheng mumbled.

“At the bank?”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess, not, were you surprised, just…how did you…?”

“Feel?”

“Mm.”

Yuta’s lungs were shaky. “Uh,” he said, “heartbroken,” and Sicheng ducked his head out from under Yuta’s chin and laid it on the pillow next to Yuta. “Only for a little while,” Yuta said. “Later, when I could think clearly, I knew you would never do any of that stuff on purpose. And things weren’t adding up. So I had to talk to you.”

“Weren’t you scared?” Sicheng said.

Yuta thought back to the moment after he’d heard Kinetic’s voice. “When you grabbed me,” he said, “at the bank, and I realized who you were, I was scared. But I was scared I was right. Not of you. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t.”

Sicheng shook his head a little on the pillow. Yuta expected to hear something self-deprecatory again—another _you have too much faith in me_ , another _I don’t deserve you_. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he said, “I was scared.”

“You were?”

“When I saw you in the corner,” he said. He spoke softly, and Yuta’s heart wobbled. “I couldn’t believe it. I was so scared, I couldn’t go undetectable for a second. I couldn’t think anything except…”

“Except?” Yuta said when he paused.

“Anybody but him.” It had taken Sicheng a second to say it. “All I could think was, anybody but you.”

There was still fear in his voice now. Yuta found Sicheng’s hand and brought in front of him, pressing his mouth into Sicheng’s palm. Sicheng surprised Yuta again by drawing his hand back, putting it to his own lips, and laying it on Yuta’s cheek.

As Yuta reached for Sicheng’s face, he remembered his black eye. His hand hovered above it. “Was that when he hit you?”

“He barely hit me.”

“Barel—? Sicheng, I was there. I saw you go down. Your eye…”

“If he really hit me,” said Sicheng, “my skull would be smashed in. He barely hit me.”

Yuta felt another jolt of anxiety, almost panic, similar to the one he’d felt at the police station. He let his hand drop back onto the pillow, and Sicheng took it.

“Please promise me,” Sicheng said.

Yuta bit the inside of his lip. “This must be what you felt like every time you promised at the hospital you wouldn’t get hurt again.”

Sicheng didn’t laugh, just held Yuta’s hand tighter.

“I promise I won’t get involved,” said Yuta finally.

Sicheng let out a breath.

“As long as nothing happens to you.”

“Yuta!”

“I’m just being honest...”

Sicheng pulled away his hand and sat up. Yuta sat up with him and held him. After a few seconds, Sicheng put his arms around Yuta too.

“I won’t do anything crazy, okay?” said Yuta into his skin. “I won’t get hurt.”

Sicheng’s hand was on Yuta’s arm. He pressed it closer to him and said, barely audibly, “Please don’t.”

Three days later, Yuta was alone in the lounge at the hospital when Taeyong walked in. Yuta was on the phone with Sicheng and had to cut himself off in the middle of his sentence. “You should at least give me his number in case there’s—yeah, just in case. Hey, I have to go,” he said, turning in his chair to give what he hoped looked like a casual wave.

“Okay,” said Sicheng while Taeyong waved back as he crossed to the fridge, “bye.”

“Talk to you later,” said Yuta and hung up. Taeyong took a yogurt out of the fridge and brought it to the table where Yuta was sitting. Yuta beamed at him and said, “What’s up?”

“Yogurt is up,” said Taeyong. “Who were you talking to?”

“Friend of mine. What flavor yogurt?”

It wasn’t the sharpest deflection; the side of the container was clearly labeled “plain.” Taeyong tilted it towards him, taking a plastic spoon out of the basket. “No flavor yogurt. Want some?”

Yuta shook his head and stood up. “No thanks. I should go see if Irene needs help with that fungus lady.”

“Irene’s fine,” said Taeyong without looking up. “Sit down with me.”

Yuta vacillated. He still hadn’t given Taeyong the promised explanation of what had happened at the bank and the police station last week. He’d gone to Taeyong’s house the day after spending the night with Sicheng, but he’d asked Jaehyun to come with him at the last second to avoid any serious discussion. Yuta walked in a circle and sat back down. “You been doing okay?”

“Me? Fine,” said Taeyong. “What about you? I saw you got a new phone.”

Yuta said, “Oh—no, I still have my—regular… I just texted you this morning from it.”

“From your regular phone,” said Taeyong, “yeah. You’ve also got a burner phone, huh?”

He was right. Sicheng refused to text or even talk over Yuta’s normal line, so Yuta had bought a prepaid phone the day after the bank fire. He’d been talking to Sicheng on the burner just now, but he’d hoped Taeyong wouldn’t notice. “Oh, yeah! I thought you meant, like, did I get a new number. Yeah, it’s cool. I also got new shoes with some little—”

“What’s the burner phone for?” interrupted Taeyong, daintily scooping yogurt into his mouth.

“What’s it for? Hah,” said Yuta, “just for kicks.”

“Kicks. That’s funny.”

“Yeah—”

“Hey,” said Taeyong, “I thought the other day how I haven’t seen Ling Winwin in a bit.”

Yuta was sweating. This was not going in a direction he liked. “No. He hasn’t been to the hospital in a while.”

“You’ve seen him recently though, haven’t you?” Taeyong said, looking him in the eye for the first time in the whole conversation.

“What?”

“Have you?” said Taeyong.

Yuta needed to unfreeze. He tried to wipe the shock off his face. “Seen Ling Winwin? What do you mean? When?”

Taeyong stirred his yogurt. “You tell me, you were yelling his name at the bank.”

“I—at the bank?” Shit, shit, shit. “I was yelling ‘ _watch out_.’ Uh…I thought…”

“You thought?”

“I thought,” Yuta said weakly, “Kinetic was going to get burnt. So I just started yelling whatever I could think of.”

“So you were just guessing what he’s called,” said Taeyong. “Yelling out whatever names came to mind. And Winwin was the first one.”

Yuta stared at a scratch on the table. “Yeah.”

Taeyong leaned forward and said, “Same thing with when you yelled Sicheng?”

Fucking hell. “Taeyong, shhh…”

“What? Should I not say Sicheng?”

“No—no, you’re just kind of loud…”

“So I can say Sicheng if I say it quietl—”

“ _Taeyong!_ Okay! Okay, okay!”

Yuta had his hands up as if to surrender. Taeyong closed his mouth. He glanced at the security camera in the corner of the lounge. Then he said, “Let’s have dinner after work. Mm?”

“You’re,” said Yuta, watching Taeyong stand up, “it seems like—you’re thinking something that’s not…”

“Convince me I’m wrong later,” said Taeyong, tossing the yogurt container into the trash. “And until then, stay out of fucking trouble.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Yuta managed to squeak. Taeyong walked out of the room.

Yuta debated what to message Sicheng, or whether to message Sicheng at all, until a half hour before his shift ended, when he received a text from him instead. _Can you come over tonight?_

Yuta tucked himself into the wall, out of the way of a stretcher being wheeled down the hall. _yes!! i told my friend id get dinner with him tho, i might not make it until late is that ok_

“ _Yes_ ”

Yuta typed “ _great_ ” and some hearts after it, hit send, and hesitated. He couldn’t tell Sicheng that Taeyong knew. He didn’t even know what Taeyong knew. Taeyong probably didn't really know anything, he’d just heard Yuta yelling Sicheng’s name at the bank and gotten suspicious. But if Sicheng heard about that, he would freak out. Yuta might lose him. He couldn’t tell him. Not just now.

Yuta put his phone away and went down the hall. “You okay?” said Yeri as she passed him. He wasn’t. He felt queasy. He was thinking about what he and Sicheng had promised—that they’d be honest from now on, that they’d do everything together. He stopped outside the lounge and put his hand in his hair. The door to the lounge wasn't fully closed, and through the crack he could hear the voices of the TV. He got his phone out and messaged Sicheng again. _can i give you a call right now just real quick about something_

_Yeah_

Yuta pushed the door open with his shoulder. Taeyong was on the couch. “…speculation that Pyro is a mainland extremist trying to break down the already tense mainland-island relations,” said the voice on the TV. Taeyong’s shift had ended an hour ago, but he’d stayed to wait for Yuta. He was facing away from the TV, his Intermediate Japanese book open in front of him. “Others ask if he has a more sinister agenda, such as using the threat to human life as political leverage against the National Security Bureau,” said the newscaster. Yuta noiselessly pulled the door back until there was only a slim opening and left.

There was a supplies closet on the second floor with a broken security camera. At least, everyone said it was broken. Years ago, well before their time, a nurse who had since transferred hospitals claimed to have been inside the security office and seen that the video stream to the closet camera was black. There were rumors that Irene brought her wife there to make out in the middle of long shifts. Yuta didn’t believe those particular rumors, but he was pretty sure it was true that the camera there was defunct, or at least didn’t record audio.

While the phone rang, Yuta shuffled through some bottles of iodine on a shelf to make it look like he was doing something in case someone walked in. Sicheng picked up quickly. “Hello?”

“Hi. It's me.”

“Are you done work yet?”

“No, I have like 20 minutes. I'm in that closet.”

“Mm.”

“How are you?”

Sicheng sounded like he was smiling. “Fine. You’ve been talking to me all day.”

“Yeah, I just figured I’d check since you—like, you asked if I could come over.”

“Oh, just.” Sicheng coughed. “I missed you.”

Yuta let his head fall against the shelf dreamily, and a bottle of iodine rolled off it and hit the ground. He jumped. “Me too,” he said, scrambling to pick it up, “I was wondering when I’d get to see you again. None of the patients at the hospital are half as interesting as you.”

“I hope not,” said Sicheng. “None of your patients are wanted by national security.”

“How do you know?”

Sicheng laughed, and the twinkling pleasure of the sound took Yuta back to the first few days with Sicheng in the hospital, when Yuta’s only goal had been to make him smile. Seeing his smile then had been like seeing an egg hatch after a long wait.

“Well one thing I can tell you for sure,” said Yuta, spinning the iodine bottle on the shelf, “is that none of my patients are as good-looking as you, which has been disappointing.”

Sicheng had made a small, brief scoffing noise. “Good thing disappointments can be survived.”

“I don’t know. It’s taking a toll. I think it might be affecting my physical health.” Yuta made a pitiful coughing sound.

“Don’t you have patients right now?”

Yuta didn’t. “Yeah, but did you hear me when I said they’re not as good-looking as you?”

“Didn’t you call for a reason?”

Yuta gritted his teeth. Okay. Onetwothree. “Yeah, uh, I did. I have to tell you something. You’re, listen, you’re going to get freaked out, but please just listen to me because I promise it’s not as big a deal as it’s going to sound at first.”

Sicheng said nothing. Yuta went on, “My best friend heard me yelling your name at Kinetic at the bank.” Sicheng started to speak, but Yuta continued, “No, no, just listen. This isn’t that bad. He’s been asking me about it. About you. But, but, I swear to you, I know him, he won’t…I trust him. He won’t say or do anything if I ask him not to.”

Sicheng had been trying to talk over Yuta at first, but now he was quiet. Yuta heard a little swish or thump in the background, and then Sicheng whispered, “Fuck.”

“Sich—hey, please, don’t freak out. We can figure this out. You’re safe. We’re safe.”

Silence. “Are you still with me?” said Yuta.

“Yeah.”

“Great. You’re not freaking out, are you?”

Silence again, labored somehow, and a shuffling.

“Just stay with me,” said Yuta. “This is my best friend. I’ve known him for years. I’m going to have dinner with him tonight and...tell him whatever I can tell him.”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“Well he’s—I have to come up with something. He works at the hospital, and he knows who you are. Your hospital name, I mean. And he’s heard your real name a few times.”

“A _few times—?_ ”

“Apparently,” Yuta said, swallowing, “I said it in my sleep once. When I took a nap at work. But—”

“You...”

“My friend, he got antsy because I still haven’t told him what happened when you took me into the hallway at the bank and threw me out the back door. And he’s convinced something went down at the police station because I was talking to the police longer than anyone else. But he doesn’t actually know anything.”

“He knows who I am.”

“Not—not _who_ you are. He just knows your name from the hospital.”

“Have you ever mentioned my brother to him?”

“I...” Yuta thought through all the times he’d talked about Winwin with Taeyong before the bank. He wouldn't have had any reason to bring up Renjun, would he? “No. No, I haven’t.”

Sicheng exhaled. Yuta went on, “Yeah, so at this point I guess maybe he thinks...that you’re Kinetic, or that I thought you were Kinetic. And he thinks I’ve seen you outside of the hospital. Other than that, there’s nothing. Nothing else he knows.”

“Tell him I’m him,” said Sicheng. “Kinetic.”

Yuta’s palms were sweaty. He changed the phone to his other hand. “What?”

“Tell him you’ve been helping me when I get hurt,” said Sicheng. “But you weren’t supposed to reveal my identity, so you couldn’t tell him. That part’s not even a lie.”

“That,” said Yuta, bracing his hand against the shelf, “could get us into trouble if...”

“It’s the only option.”

Yuta thought for a second. Taeyong would accept that account, and it would certainly be easier to explain. But how would Yuta justify the long interview at the police station? He covered the phone with his hand and spoke into the receiver in a low voice. “Should I tell him the police are trying to figure out who the Four really are? I need a reason why they interviewed me for so long.”

“No. It makes more sense that the police know who Kinetic is,” said Sicheng. “Tell him the reason they talked to you for so long is because they wanted to know more about P…Pyro said. They were analyzing his speech patterns, I don’t know. Anything. Just make something up.”

“Okay,” said Yuta. He tried to slow the racing of his heart with a deep breath. “Good. I will. Are you okay?”

Sicheng said, “He can’t say anything to anyone, Yuta.”

“I know. He won’t. I’ll make sure. And we only need to last a little longer,” said Yuta. “You’ve got something, remember? It’s almost over.”

Sicheng sighed heavily. Yuta gripped the shelf above him and bowed his head. He wished he were with him now.

“Listen to me,” Yuta said. “I trust him.”

He was still quiet.

“And you trust me, right?”

“Yes,” said Sicheng immediately, “of course I do.”

“Right,” said Yuta. “Then you don’t have to worry. We’ll get this figured out. We can get this all figured out.”

Sicheng said thinly, “Okay.”

“I'll message you,” said Yuta.

“Okay.”

“Call if you need me,” said Yuta.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Talk to you soon.”

“Mm.”

The phrases were all replacements for “ _Love you_ ,” and it was on the tip of Yuta’s tongue, had been every time he’d hung up the phone with Sicheng or texted him good night in the last three days. It was there, and it was begging to be said. Yuta gulped it back. “Okay. Bye.”

“Bye,” said Sicheng. He hung up. Yuta deleted the call, as he always did in case he lost it so Sicheng’s number wasn’t saved in the phone, and sat on the floor among the boxes of gauze and cans of bleach. He’d tell Taeyong that Sicheng, Winwin, was Kinetic, and the police had told him not to tell anyone, and they were trying to find Pyro but no one knew who he was. He’d say that Taeyong couldn’t say anything because then he’d be in danger, they all would, in danger from Pyro. He put his head in his hands. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like lying to Taeyong, didn’t like painting Pyro as the bad guy, but it would have to do for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic's a little long have you had something to eat or drink recently? drink water you dehydrated green bean
> 
> potential triggers in chapter 13: none except for 2 cocktails with very little alcohol in them


	13. Chapter 13

“He’s _who?_ ” Taeyong said at the restaurant, voice jumping.

“Shhhh...”

“ _Him? He’s_ —”

“Taeyong, please please. Voice down.”

Taeyong put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. The restaurant was loud, and they were in the corner, each with a colorful but untouched cocktail in front of them. Yuta reached for his cocktail now.

“Holy fuck,” Taeyong whispered, watching Yuta gulp his watermelon mojito, “I, I thought he was, but I didn’t actually _think_ he _was_...”

Yuta lowered the mojito and said, “Me too,” and lifted it to his lips again.

“Shit,” said Taeyong, and thought for a second while Yuta waded through his mojito. Then he reached out and hit Yuta’s arm. “Hang on. Are you guys getting it in?”

“Jesus, Taeyong.”

“ _Are_ you?”

Yuta set down the cocktail, which was mostly empty now. It hadn’t occurred to him that Taeyong would ask. He had the sudden urge to tell him, a high-schoolish, first-kiss kind of giddiness. He looked up from the mojito and said, “Not—not _getting it in_ per se, but we—did some other—things—Taeyong, I’m losing my fucking mind.”

“Oh my god, you’re hooking up with one of the Fighting Four,” Taeyong said, and put a hand over his mouth.

“I’m in so deep with him,” Yuta whispered. “He’s driving me insane.”

“Oh my goooood, oh my god,” said Taeyong.

“I can’t think ever think about anything except whether he’s okay,” Yuta said, the words stumbling out, “I can’t think about anything but him. I’m always scared I’m going to lose him any second.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Taeyong said, getting up to give Yuta a hug. Yuta blinked in his arms. He hadn’t meant to say that, at least not that way. He swallowed down the lump in his throat while Taeyong sat back down.

“That must be horrible,” said Taeyong, leaning forward over his folded arms and speaking in a gentle voice. “He’s lucky he has you. Yeah?”

Yuta put his head in his hand. “Yeah.” What had he been about to say? “Uh, yeah, that’s why—Taeyong, this is really important. Not just for him, but for you and me too. You can’t mention any of this to anyone.”

Taeyong nodded earnestly. “Okay.”

“I’m serious. These people he’s up against, they’re—this person—this person is really dangerous. I don’t just mean the arson and the mass murder stuff. He’s got...ways. He’s got connections.”

“Pyro...?” said Taeyong, tilting his head, and Yuta nodded. “Right. He’s not just, like, one rogue dude causing havoc. Taeyong, he could delete the three of us off this planet in one night. He can erase our whole existence.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“There are people...” Yuta struggled. He was saying too much, he needed to wrap it up. “He can cover up whatever he wants, okay? If he finds us, we’re gone. And no one comes looking for us.”

Taeyong blanched, a shard of fear passing over his face. That was it—that was all Yuta needed. “But we’re fine,” Yuta said, “if we just keep this between us, okay? We’ll be okay. The Four just need to find him before he finds them.”

“Are you in danger right now?” Taeyong said.

“Uh, no. Not if,” said Yuta, “we keep this a secret. Then Pyro won’t have any way to track us down.”

“So…” said Taeyong. He stopped, picked up his margarita, and said, “What is his deal?” before taking a long sip of it.

Yuta shrugged. “He’s crazy. He wants to um...he wants...he wants to mess up Neo City.”

“Oh, yeah, I got that much. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Yuta said. “Winwin doesn’t tell me that much.”

Taeyong put down his margarita. He patted Yuta’s hand, and his fingers were cold and wet from holding the margarita glass. “I’m glad you told me the truth. I’m here for you, okay? If you guys ever need anything. If I can ever help at all.”

“Yeah,” said Yuta, “I know.” The mojito wasn’t sitting well in his stomach. He shifted in his chair.

“And I know this goes without saying,” said Taeyong, “but I promise I won’t tell anyone. Not a word.”

“Thank you.”

Taeyong drank again. He seemed to pull himself together, and the wrinkle in his brow smoothed. “So,” he said, “you and Kinetic.”

“Uh huh.”

“How does he do it?”

“Surprisingly well, considering he’s spent his life locked up in a government lab,” said Yuta, and Taeyong snorted, coughing half a mouthful of margarita onto the table. Yuta threw a napkin at him and Taeyong choked, “I didn’t mean the sexy stuff, I meant the telekinesis,” and Yuta said, “Oh, oops,” and then they were laughing loud enough to draw looks.

“He uh,” said Yuta through laughter, “he’s, like, got government tech in him. They all do. It’s been in the works for ten years or something.”

“Are you telling me you sucked a bionic robo-di—”

“For fuck’s SAKE,” said Yuta, grabbing hold of Taeyong’s margarita and threatening to throw it in his face. Taeyong bent sideways over his knees. Yuta kicked his shin but he didn’t react. “Not that kind of tech,” said Yuta, “he doesn’t have, like, computers in him, or maybe he fucking does, I don’t know, I meant, like biological tech, or medicinal—I don’t fucking know. I don’t know! Stop laughing!”

“Sorry,” said Taeyong, “sorry, I’m not laughing at you, I’m just, like, wondering...”

“Well stop wonder—”

“No, like,” said Taeyong, straightening up in his chair, “can you get me an in with the Hammer? Or just get me his number or something? That could be arranged, right?”

“No, no,” said Yuta, “no, you don’t want an in with the Hammer. No.”

Taeyong’s eyebrows rose. “You met him?”

“No.” Yuta shook his head quickly. “I don’t know him.”

“Well if you ever do meet him,” said Taeyong, “don’t forget to mention me. Let him know that I’m cute and I’m at his disposal.”

Yuta wrinkled his nose and said, “Don’t think I will,” and Taeyong seized his wrist and squeezed it and said, “This is the price for my silence,” and Yuta said, “Are you taking this seriously?”

Taeyong sat back, letting go of Yuta. “Yeah. I am, really. I just wanted to make you laugh for a little.”

Yuta smiled and said, “Okay. Well, you did. Thanks, Tae.”

“Thanks for being honest with me,” said Taeyong. “I won’t mention anything to anyone.”

A dent appeared in Yuta’s mood. He tried not to let it show in his smile. “Thank you.”

Taeyong smiled back at him so sincerely that Yuta’s heart crumpled a little more. He bent his face toward his empty drink.

“Yuta,” said Taeyong, lowering his voice, “nothing bad’s going to happen to you, right?”

“God, no. No. Promise.”

Taeyong tipped his margarita slush around in his glass. “You’ll tell me if you ever need help, right?”

Yuta said, “Sure.”

“We should think of a code word you can use if you’re ever in trouble,” Taeyong said.

Yuta laughed. “What? A code word?”

“Like, the craziest word you can think of,” said Taeyong, “something that would never come up casually in conversation, so I would know something’s wrong. Obsidian. Kumquat.”

“You want me, in a situation where I’ve been kidnapped and thrown in a dark room, to pull out my phone and text you the word ‘kumquat’?” Yuta said, and they both started to giggle. “The bad guys would be like, what the fuck is this?”

“You can just tell them I like exotic fruit,” Taeyong said. “Bam. Nothing suspicious about liking exotic fruit.”

“Yeah,” said Yuta, “okay, thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Yuta ate quickly once the food came. He was anxious to see Sicheng. To tell him everything was okay. He’d messaged Sicheng exactly that, _hey, it’s handled, everything’s okay_ , but Sicheng hadn’t replied. These days he always messaged back right away. Yuta called him right after Taeyong got on the subway. For a second, he was terrified Sicheng wouldn’t pick up. Then he heard his voice.

“Hello?”

Yuta sighed. “God, why didn’t you message me back? I got scared.”

“I just,” said Sicheng, and fell silent.

“No,” said Yuta, taking the subway steps two at a time, “don’t do that. I know exactly what you’re thinking right now, the more people who know, the higher the risk, but that’s not what’s happening here.”

“How is that not what’s happening here?” Sicheng said. His voice sounded. “Maybe…”

“It’s just one person. Hey.”

“I think…” said Sicheng. “I think—” He stopped. Renjun was speaking in the background. He spoke at length, at least a few sentences. “No,” said Sicheng, not to Yuta but to Renjun, and Renjun came closer, saying something Yuta could just make out: “ _After everything he’s done for us? You can’t do that to him._ ”

“He’s right,” said Yuta, “whatever he’s saying, he’s right,” and Sicheng said abruptly, “Fine. Fine. I’ll message you the new address. Make sure no one is following you.”

“Okay,” said Yuta, “yes. I will.”

Sicheng seemed to take an impatient, clipped breath and hold it. Then he said, “Bye.”

“Bye,” said Yuta, and Sicheng hung up. Half a minute later the address came in, and it wasn’t far from the old one in West Weishen. Yuta walked to the subway door as the train pulled in and typed in reply, _be there in 20 <3_

_Be careful_ , said Sicheng.

_obv~~_

Yuta put on his mask—he usually did when he was outside these days—and stepped onto the train. He got off a few stops away from the one closest to the address and walked.

The building was much like the first one, old, dimly lit, but further off the main street. After he knocked, he heard the peephole cover slide away from the inside of the door. A second later Sicheng was opening the door and taking the grocery bags out of Yuta’s hands. “Hi,” Yuta said, but Sicheng didn’t say anything, just threw the bags behind the door and pulled Yuta inside and into a hug.

“Hey,” said Yuta more softly as they rocked on their feet for a moment before steadying. Sicheng’s arms were tight across his back. Warmth. Yuta closed his eyes. This—holding him, being held by him—this was the best thing.

Renjun leaned out of a doorway behind him and said, “Hi, Yuta.”

Yuta lifted his head from Sicheng’s neck. “Hi, Renjun.”

Renjun looked between them with what might have been smugness and said, “He thought he should cut you off for real to keep you and your friend safe. I told him that was dumb.”

“ _Thank_ you,” said Yuta, and Renjun disappeared back into the room he’d stuck his head out of. Yuta and Sicheng turned to each other and both started to talk, Yuta saying, “Sicheng, we can’t keep doing this, I have to know that you’ll…” and Sicheng stumbling over himself to say, “No, I know, not anymore. Yuta, I’m not going to do that anymore, I need you.”

Yuta’s sentence disintegrated halfway and instead of finishing it he said, “You do?”

Sicheng looked in Yuta’s eyes, one and then the other. His mouth wasn’t smiling, but his face seemed to be anyway. For a second, Yuta wanted to cry.

Renjun reappeared, hooking a pinky though the handles of one of the grocery bags and saying, “Thank god, I’ve been eating instant ramen for every meal since Wednesday. Did you bring anything good?”

Sicheng said, “Seriously, Renjun?” while Yuta chirped, “Yeah, has your brother had Oreos? I got double stuff. He’s going to go crazy.”

“No,” said Renjun, peering into the bag, “I don’t think he’s had them.”

“Had what?” said Sicheng.

“Oreos,” said Yuta.

“What are Oreos?”

Yuta followed Sicheng and Renjun out of the small outer room into an even smaller bedroom, its walls bare like the last apartment and painted in the unsettling glare of a single hanging lightbulb. The bedroom was as furnished as the bigger room, which was to say, not at all. “I can’t wait to do some interior decorating for you guys after all this is over,” Yuta said, glancing from the mattress in the corner to Renjun kneeling in front of a computer on the ground.

“Sure,” said Sicheng absently. He was folding his legs next to Renjun and beckoning for the laptop. Renjun gave him a reproachful look.

“Whatcha got there?” said Yuta.

“Some fucked-up NSB code,” said Renjun, spinning the screen towards Yuta for a brief second. Yuta only caught sight of several lines of blue characters running over a black background before Renjun had turned it around again.

“Holy shit,” said Yuta.

Sicheng was making another grab for the computer. When Renjun held it out of his reach, he said, “How long?”

“Is that the thing?” Yuta said.

“Maybe 36 hours,” Renjun muttered, “if I don’t shower.”

“Yeah,” said Sicheng to Yuta.

“Or eat or sleep.” Renjun was still talking. “Probably would have time for a couple pees.”

“Two days.” Sicheng paused. Then he looked up at Yuta. “Will you come over on Sunday? I mean, can you?”

Sunday was two days from now. “Sure,” said Yuta, kneeling in front of him and picking up his hand, “of course. I have the long shift Sunday, though, I won’t make it over until night.”

“Oh. No,” said Sicheng, letting Yuta play with his hand. “Go home and rest. You can come later. Monday.”

“Just call me when you have it, okay,” said Yuta.

Sicheng nodded while Renjun clicked some buttons and closed the laptop. “My brain is code now,” said Renjun. “Everything is code. All I see is zeroes and ones.” He pulled a grocery bag towards him.

“What,” said Yuta, “what is it…?”

Sicheng picked up the closed computer. Renjun paused, eyeing him. Sicheng angled the laptop toward Yuta and said, “The data drives.”

Plugged into the side of the computer, one by a cord and one directly, were a black hard drive and a little flash drive. An orange light blinked on the corner of the flash drive. Yuta’s eyes widened. “That’s what was in the bank?”

“This was,” said Sicheng, tapping the blinking memory stick. “The other one is from the Opus Building.”

“What’s on it?” said Yuta, drawing closer. “Evidence?”

Renjun lifted the laptop out of Sicheng’s hand. “Maybe.” He slid it into a corner. “Or all AHG’s BDSM porn. Can’t be sure yet.”

“Oh,” said Yuta.

“What is BDSM porn?” said Sicheng.

“We can talk about that later. Will you guys eat? I didn’t bring chicken for y’all to sit here and not eat it,” said Yuta, fishing a box out of a bag.

Renjun said, “CHICKEN?”

“Only the best for you two,” Yuta said as Renjun tore the box out of his hand and ripped open the lid.

“ _Renjun,_ ” said Sicheng.

“What? He just said he wants us to stop not eating it,” said Renjun.

“He’s right,” said Yuta, “Sicheng, it’s okay. This guy’s been slaving away cracking codes for three days, of course he’s going to be starving.”

“Exactly!” Renjun gestured at Yuta with a half-eaten chicken leg. “See? He understands my suffering.”

Sicheng gave Renjun an unimpressed look, while Renjun gnawed at the chicken again and went on, “Like, their code’s not even good. It’s absolute trash. Which you would think would make my job easier, because it’s clearly written by simpletons, but actually, it’s _so_ bad that it’s _harder_ to sort through. Like if you’re trying to read a story written by a three-year-old. Except the story is written in a different language that you have to decrypt.”

They went through the contents of the grocery bags and turned them into a makeshift feast, Sicheng repeating multiple times that he’d pay Yuta back soon and Yuta telling him to drop it. Sicheng didn’t like the cream in the Oreos, and he went to get cups for kiwi-strawberry Propel to wash it down. When he came back, he sat close enough to Yuta for their knees to rest against one another. An earnest discussion followed about what kind of cookies Yuta should bring next, and it was so good to sit near him, smile with him, talk about everyday things with him, that Yuta almost forgot everything else.

“What did Renjun say to you earlier?” Yuta asked Sicheng, as Renjun held the Oreos box out to him and Yuta tried to take two at once.

“Renjun?” said Sicheng.

“I mean before,” Yuta said, giving up and removing a single Oreo, “on the phone, you sounded scared enough to block my number and never talk to me again. And then I got here and you…” _You said you needed me._ “You weren’t as stressed. How did he change your mind?”

Sicheng said, “He didn’t.”

Yuta crunched on the Oreo. “He didn’t?”

“Seeing you outside changed my mind,” said Sicheng.

Yuta’s mouth rounded, and a small “Oh” came out. Renjun was trying not to smile down at the Oreos box, the same way he’d done when he saw Sicheng hugging Yuta at the door.

“It’s just that I kept wanting to do the right thing, but,” Sicheng said, “then I saw you, and I realized staying away from you wasn’t the right thing anymore.”

There was conviction in the way he said it. Determination, even. Yuta realized suddenly that Sicheng had never looked into his eyes with this much calm in his life. Sicheng had looked at him with gratitude, with laughter, fondness, maybe even wonder. But he’d never looked at him like this. The realization hit Yuta heavily, and the feeling that came in its wake was singular and certain and crystal clear, like a bell in the wake of a mallet’s strike.

“Good,” Yuta said, “don’t.”

Peace. That was the look on Sicheng’s face. Peace.

“It’s late,” said Renjun suddenly, stacking the Oreo box and laptop like books under his arm. “I’m gonna go work on the encryption. G’night. Thanks for the food, Yuta.”

Sicheng put a hand under him as if to stand, saying, “It’s your turn for the mattress.”

“No it’s not,” said Renjun.

Sicheng frowned. “I got the mattress last night. Today I’m on the couch—”

“I want the couch today,” said Renjun. “Forever, actually.” Before Sicheng could protest any more, Renjun had closed the door behind him, leaving Sicheng and Yuta alone in the white glow of the hanging bulb.

Sicheng, halfway through rising from the floor, lowered himself back down. Yuta still had half an Oreo in his hand. He held it out. Sicheng shook his head and watched him while he put it in his mouth and reached for his cup of Propel.

“Your brother’s funny,” said Yuta after setting the cup back down on the floor.

“He’s a genius.”

“How’s he doing all that stuff?”

“He spent most of his free time growing up learning how to hack,” said Sicheng.

“Fun hobby for a thirteen year old,” said Yuta.

Sicheng straightened his legs in front of him. “He got in a lot of trouble for it. Got passed around between foster homes. He was,” and he made a small noise of discomfort as he adjusted his left leg, “just trying to find out what had happened to us.”

“Did he ever find anything?” said Yuta.

“No,” said Sicheng.

Yuta shuffled closer and rolled up Sicheng’s pant leg. Sicheng didn’t protest.

“Leg looks good,” said Yuta.

“Mm.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” said Sicheng. “The skin’s just tight.”

Yuta nodded, pretending to examine it more closely. Sicheng said, “Any nurse thoughts?”

Yuta tapped his chin and said, “Yes. That’s one sexy scar,” and Sicheng laughed, rolling his pant leg back out. Yuta sat back, crossing his ankles, folding his elbows around his knees.

“Have you and Renjun been doing okay?” said Yuta. “In here?”

They didn’t go out much, Yuta knew. And never during the day. Renjun had stopped going to school after the bridge collapse, and only left the apartment for necessities. He had changed his hair color three times in the last three weeks—Sicheng said he was having fun doing it. He had also managed to get ahold of all the neighbors’ Wifi passcodes, apparently, and they switched between them every few days, spreading their data usage evenly so no one would notice. Seulgi had found the apartment for them and put down key money, no questions asked. Yuta had had to reassure Sicheng yesterday that it was better to owe her money a little longer than to rob a store to pay her back.

“Yeah,” Sicheng said slowly, “I think so. Sometimes I try to say sorry for, like, getting him into all this, but…” His smile dimpled prettily. “He just says it’s worth it to have me back.”

Yuta felt his heart ache towards him, a kind of a fervent swooning. Not for the first time, he silently thanked whatever gods existed for putting Renjun here. “Yeah, that’s the general sentiment around here these days. That it’s worth it to have you.”

Sicheng dipped his head briefly in Yuta’s direction, more of a doubtful gesture than a nod, but his smile was growing. Yuta reached a hand at him. “Can we lie down?”

“Sure.”

The mattress was covered by a single sheet, one fleece blanket bunched at the bottom. Yuta clambered onto it and pulled the blanket over their legs. “Y’all are taking minimalism to quite an extreme here.”

“No point in moving furniture in,” said Sicheng, laying his head on his hand, “we probably won’t be here long.”

“You’re moving again soon?”

“Have to.”

“Being on the lam is a full-time job, huh.”

“Mm-hm.”

They were lying on their sides, facing each other. At some point in the last few seconds they had arranged themselves into mirror images—heads resting in hands, elbows touching, their other hands flat against the mattress.

“You can stay with me,” said Yuta. “At my house.”

He didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him before. Sicheng was shaking his head, though, saying, “Thank you, Yuta, but we can’t do that.”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about all this,” said Yuta, “the internet stuff, rent, bills, groceries—”

Sicheng said, not unsmilingly, “It’s not going to happen.”

“Your supervillain name shouldn’t be Mr. Invisible, it should be Mr. Obstinate.”

“I don’t know that you’re the one who should be going around calling people obstinate.”

“Me? _What?_ ” Yuta pretended to be shocked. “What have _I_ ever been obstinate about?”

“Me,” said Sicheng.

“You?”

“Not letting me go.”

Yuta softened, forgetting his fake outrage.

“Did you mean it when you said you needed me?” he asked.

“Yes,” Sicheng said.

It was such an impossibly pretty thought. Sicheng needing him. “Why?” Yuta said.

Sicheng’s answer only took a few seconds. “Because,” he said, “the only time I don’t feel scared is when you’re with me.”

Yuta was always scared without him too, lately.

“I can’t…get anywhere without you,” said Sicheng.

Yuta said, “Finally, you’re starting to understand what it would do to me to leave you alone.”

A corner of Sicheng’s mouth rose.

“The moving thing,” said Yuta. “Staying at my house. Just. Just think about it.”

Sicheng gave no affirmative or negative reaction, no nod or head shake. He just held Yuta’s gaze. His black eye was greenish-blue now. Hurt and healing colors.

They lay in the gathering silence, looking at each other. Sicheng’s eyes broke from Yuta’s to drift over his face. Eventually, they stopped on his lips. One second stretched to five and ten.

Yuta lifted his head and sealed a motionless kiss onto Sicheng’s mouth. For a long, still, perfect moment, they were both suspended in it. Then Sicheng seemed to teeter, to lose his balance. He fell forward into Yuta, who caught him, shifting to meeting his shifting. In, out. Equilibrium again. Tidelike now.

They kissed until time melted—it always did eventually, Yuta was starting to understand—and until they were warm enough to throw off the blanket. Then they kissed until it was hard to know where either of them ended or began, and Sicheng got up to turn off the light and came back and still, they lay folded up in each other and kissed, until they started to get sleepy, and Yuta pulled the blanket back over them.

“Is it okay if I stay over,” he whispered. Sicheng laughed at him instead of answering. Yuta said, “Well sorry for being _polite_...”

“I never knew anything could feel like you,” Sicheng said.

Yuta couldn’t speak for a second. Their foreheads and noses were touching, and Yuta felt the air Sicheng spoke on his own lips. He tried to use it to say something, but it was like he’d had the wind knocked out of him.

“I just never knew,” said Sicheng, in a quieter voice.

“I, I,” said Yuta, lungs finally expanding, “I didn’t, I feel, me too. God…”

He drew in breath and kissed him again. Then he spoke without fully breaking the kiss. “That.” Their lips brushed. “I feel that too. That’s ours. That’s yours.”

“Mine?” Sicheng said.

Yuta put a hand flat against Sicheng’s chest and said, “Yes. Yours. No one can take it from you.”

Sicheng placed his own palm on Yuta’s chest. Their faces were so close that Yuta barely had to pucker for their lips to meet or separate. Their mouths trailed together and apart.

Minutes later, faster than either of them noticed or intended, they were both asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello bud
> 
> potential triggers: more mentions of corrupt government + assassination plot


	14. Chapter 14

Yuta walked around Sunday in a state of nervous distraction. Taeyong was watching him closely, and he only half-noticed. He’d been standing at Taeyong’s desk with Yeri and Mark, waiting for the next patient, when his phone vibrated. He jumped and almost fumbled it out of his hands.

_Hey,_ Sicheng had said.

Yuta recovered the phone, not hearing Yeri ask what was up with him, and replied calmly, _hi baby_

 _My brother’s almost finished. Can you come over after work?_ Sicheng said. A moment later, a second message: _Baby?_

_oh my god that’s great!!_ Yuta was typing. He put his hand over his mouth, laughing, and then hit send before typing another message. _sorry do you not like it?_

_I like it_

Yuta couldn’t help his smile growing. _okay ill be there at 8:30 baby <3_

_Ok_

“Look at this guy,” said Yeri, “all giggly texting his crush.”

“What?” said Yuta. “Oh. Crush? Maybe.”

“You’re seeing someone? Dude!” said Mark excitedly.

“I’m just glad you’re not still hung up on Ling Winwin,” said Yeri. Mark snickered and Taeyong turned his wide eyes down to his papers.

“Ha ha,” said Yuta, putting his phone away.

When he arrived at Sicheng’s that night, he said, “Sorry I’m a little late,” as Sicheng took takeout bags out of his hands. He followed Sicheng inside, closing the door behind him and folding up his mask. “I had to get something to eat. Do you guys like jjimdak?”

Sicheng set the takeout on the counter, turned around and said “Yeah,” before taking Yuta’s face in his hands and kissing him. Yuta dissolved at the touch of his lips. There was nothing but them.

From the other room Renjun’s voice said, “So this file.”

They paused, smiling into the kiss. Then Yuta realized. The flash drive. Reality flooded back sharply, and he pulled away. “Can I see it?”

Sicheng’s smile had faded. “Are you sure you want to?”

“Yeah.”

Renjun sat in the center of the bedroom floor surrounded by a crumb-strewn plate, an empty coffee cup, and a notebook covered in scribbles. His eyes were red and centimeters away from the screen of the computer on his lap. Sicheng sat next to him, nodding to Yuta.

Yuta crossed his legs beside Sicheng as Renjun said, “The ten digit numbers go up every time. Zero six one, zero six two, zero seven one.”

Yuta leaned over Sicheng’s shoulder to get a glimpse of the computer screen. There were no words—only strings of letters and numbers. It didn’t look any different from the way it had looked before it was decrypted. “This is it?” said Yuta.

Sicheng took the laptop from Renjun, who surrendered it reluctantly, and shifted it onto his lap. “He just finished twenty minutes ago,” said Sicheng. “This is the unencrypted text. We’re trying to comb through it.”

Yuta peered at the characters. _MPTHGL0618200125… MTIX1J… KDWX0… KJSX0.5J… MCY1X1J… MCY2X1… MCY3X.59J… MCY4X1J… MCY5X1… WYBX.33… NCUSPC0629201300… MTIX1J…_ It was dizzying. “M, P, T, H,” Yuta read, “G, L, 0, 6, 1, 8, is this supposed to make more sense once I say it aloud?”

“That stuff,” said Sicheng, pointing at the long blocks of letters and numbers, “we don’t know about yet. But look here.” His finger landed on the shorter chunks. “We think these are for people.”

“People?” said Yuta.

“Who do you know with the initials MTI?” said Renjun.

“The president?”

Renjun nodded. “Every time there’s a series of six letters and ten numbers, MTI comes right after it. MTIX1J. Every time. He’s the only one whose variables never change.”

“Variables?” Yuta repeated as Renjun reached over Sicheng and scrolled down.

“There’s a variables key at the bottom,” said Renjun, stopping at a line that read, _VRBLS… X.PRSNT… J.ESSNTL..._ “There are only two variables,” Renjun said. “‘Present’ and ‘essential.’”

“Like, if a person is going to be present for something and if they’re needed,” said Yuta.

“Yeah.” Renjun scrolled back up. “And Moon is there every time, and he’s always essential.”

“Okay,” said Yuta, “okay, that’s something, what about the other people?”

Renjun hesitated, looking sideways at Sicheng, who said, “See the MCYs?”

“Yeah.” Yuta scanned over the letters. “There are 5 of them? MCY 1, MCY 2, MCY 3…”

“There were five of us on the Mercury Project,” said Sicheng.

Yuta’s heart went cold.

“We all had numbers,” said Sicheng. “Hypnos was 1. The Hammer was 2. Kinetic was 4, Sparrow was 5. Whenever they’re listed, they’re marked X1. They’re always present.”

_MCY3X.59J_. The violent blue light of the letters and numbers was making Yuta’s head hurt. “You’re MCY 3,” he said.

Sicheng nodded.

“You have a J.”

“They need him,” said Renjun.

“Why?”

Sicheng and Renjun shared a glance. Sicheng inhaled and exhaled without speaking.

“They want to kill Moon and frame Sicheng,” said Renjun.

Yuta looked across Sicheng at him. A second passed. Yuta said, “They want to what?”

“When I was in the program,” Sicheng said in a low voice, “they used to tell us that we were going to change things for Neo City. And once we did, we’d be rewarded. We’d be rich and powerful. If we just, you know, did what they said.”

“They…they want to kill Moon…?”

“Ahn Han Geun’s been plotting a coup for years,” Renjun said. “He wants to be president. And the Fighting Four are his coup minions.”

“Voice _down_ ,” Sicheng said.

“I know, I know. He’s got everyone,” Renjun whispered to Yuta, leaning over Sicheng. “The Neo City mayor, the NCPD. There’s huge money for them if they can make Neo City an independent territory of Esem, right? Tax dollars stay on the island instead of hemorrhaging into the mainland, AHG and the mayor and police chief get fat payoffs from the tycoons whose investments would skyrocket, maybe they even skim some of the public money off the top, who knows. So those guys prop up Ahn Han Geun and his goon squad, and once he’s president, he splits us from the mainland and they all get rich.”

“But—but—” Yuta was astonished. “But they can’t just…”

“They can,” said Sicheng bitterly.

“They can cover it all up. They control the whole city,” said Renjun. “President Moon is Neo City’s only solid connection to the mainland, and he doesn’t take any of the separatist lobbying seriously. It’s because of him separatism isn’t more of a mainstream idea. As long as he’s the president of all of Esem, he’ll hold the country together. They take him out of the equation, they can do whatever they want.”

“How do we know they’re going to do that?” said Yuta, eyes fixed on the blinking blue characters.

“Director Ahn,” said Sicheng. Yuta looked at him. “He used to talk about this big plan,” Sicheng went on, “he never told us all the details, but we heard him talking about it with Mayor Kim a few times. You couldn’t tell anyone outside the project about the big plan. If you did, you were a traitor.”

Yuta’s headache was growing. “This is why they’ve been calling you a mainland extremist. To set you up to take fall for the assassination.”

“Why do you have X at .59 here, but .68 here?” Renjun said suddenly, pointing at the screen.

Yuta and Sicheng followed his pointing finger. _MCY3X.59J_. Down a few lines: _MCY3X.68J_. Then: _MCY3X.82J_.

For a minute, they were all silent. The thought occurred to Yuta just as Sicheng said it aloud. “They’ve estimated a 59% change they’ll have me at this operation, and a 68% change they’ll have me for that one.”

Another moment of quiet. Then Yuta, scanning the numbers, leaned forward. “That means these long sequences are codes for events.”

“Yeah,” said Renjun.

“MPTHGL,” read Yuta, “061820. That’s a date. June 18th, 2020.”

“Empathy Tower…” said Sicheng. At the same time, Renjun swore loudly. Yuta and Sicheng’s heads swung his way. Renjun returned their raised eyebrows and said, “That’s tomorrow! June 18th!”

Yuta and Sicheng both balked. Yuta pulled out his phone. “Search Empathy Tower, June 18,” said Renjun.

“The Empathy Gala,” said Yuta, scrolling through Naver.

“That’s it,” said Renjun. He was scrawling in the notebook.

“What’s the Empathy Gala?” said Sicheng, looking between them.

“The presidential charity gala at Empathy Tower,” said Renjun, “there’s one every year. I think this one’s for the National Food Bank. Moon shows up and gives a speech and tries to get a bunch of rich people to donate.”

“Wait.” Yuta showed them his phone screen. “The Empathy Gala is today. Tonight. It already started.”

“The other four numbers,” said Sicheng, “0, 1, 2, 5—”

“It’s a time!” said Renjun. “1:25 am tomorrow!”

Yuta scrolled down on his phone. “But the gala started at 7. What happens at 1:25?”

“They take him out,” said Renjun.

“Jesus,” said Yuta.

“What time is it now?” said Sicheng.

There was something in his voice that Yuta didn’t like. A flatness. Renjun was looking at Yuta’s phone screen and saying, “It’s 10:19.”

“I have time,” said Sicheng.

“What?” said Yuta.

“Sicheng, no,” said Renjun, “actually, no, you don’t.”

“I can’t let them kill the president, Renjun,” said Sicheng.

“No,” said Yuta, grasping for Sicheng’s shoulder, “they’re not going to kill him tonight.” He pointed ahead at the next sixteen-digit sequence, _NCUSPCH0629201300_. “This one says NCU, June 29, 13:00. NCU, like Neo City University?”

Renjun was on his own phone typing. “Moon gives a speech on mainland relations at Neo City University on June 29.”

“What about July 15 at 10:45? It says SSHPPL.”

Renjun was silent for a moment, and then he said, “Yeah. Moon’s flying to the Soshi Power Plant that day.”

“They’re all events from his public schedules,” said Sicheng under his breath.

“Events where he’s more vulnerable than the rest of the time,” said Yuta.

“They have them all the way until November, look,” said Renjun, bringing the cursor down the computer screen. There were sequences for another date in July, two in August, one in October, and three in November. “What are they going to do, kill him eight times?”

“No,” said Sicheng and Yuta at the same time. They looked at each other.

“They’re waiting until they have you,” said Yuta.

Sicheng’s eyes were tired.

“Oh no no,” said Renjun.

“Look at the Xs for MCY 3 after every date,” said Yuta. “Fifty-nine percent chance by tomorrow, sixty-eight at the NCU speech. Eighty…” He faltered and cleared his throat. “Eighty-two percent chance by the Soshi visit.”

“He always has a J after his code,” said Renjun. “They can’t do it without him.”

“So all we have to do,” said Yuta slowly, “is keep you away from them!” He jumped up. “We’ll get you out of Neo City! We’ll get you off the island. I’ll find someone who has a boat and we can…”

“I can’t leave, Yuta,” said Sicheng.

“Why not?”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“More dangerous than staying _here?_ ”

Sicheng stood up and went closer to him. “Neither of us know anyone with a boat. Even if we managed to find one, they’d kill you and everyone else who had anything to do with it once they found out. And they would find out.”

Yuta put a hand to his pounding temple and said desperately, “So we all go.”

Sicheng frowned and touched Yuta’s hand as Renjun said, “Okay, what if we did, what if all three of us plus your friend swam the fifty kilometers from Paradise Pier to Exos and escaped to a little idyllic cottage in the Esem countryside where we could hide ourselves away. They’d still kill Moon eventually, and they’d probably still find a way to make it look like Sicheng did it, and who knows how many people would get hurt, and then they’d break Neo City off of Esem and leave the whole mainland to rot in poverty…”

“Or they’ll pin the assassination on the project team instead of me,” said Sicheng. He was running his knuckles over Yuta’s forehead. “If it works for them, they’ll do it. They’ll throw the team away just like they’ve been using them this whole time. I can’t let that happen.”

Yuta didn’t understand how he was supposed to feel sympathy for the Fighting Four at this point. He ducked out of Sicheng’s reach. “If things are so bad for them, why don’t they just tell everyone? They’re like the four most powerful people in the city. Everyone would listen to them.”

Sicheng was shaking his head. “Ahn would find a way to turn it back on them.”

“Besides, why would they want to? They’ll be rich and comfy if they just follow instructions,” said Renjun. “What’s in it for them if they give Ahn up? Where would they go? What would they do?”

“Their families are gone, Yuta,” said Sicheng. “They don’t have anything else except each other. And they won’t betray each other.”

Yuta bit his lip. Sicheng’s hands were clenched at his sides. Suddenly, Yuta remembered dodging his touch and immediately felt guilty. He stepped forward, running his hand down Sicheng’s thin forearm. Sicheng’s fist loosened.

“Okay,” said Yuta, knitting their fingers, “then we can figure out another plan. We can—we can—give this to the press or something. This is proof, right? If you go forward, the Fighting Four can corroborate—”

“They won’t,” said Renjun.

“It’s not enough yet,” Sicheng muttered.

The words _“What will be enough?”_ were rising in Yuta’s throat, but he bit them back. “All right. We’ll figure something else out. We’ll finish looking at the file, figure out who all these people listed are, see what else we can get from it and…and we’ll make a new plan in the morning. Yeah?”

“Right,” said Renjun.

Sicheng was silent. They both looked at him.

“ _Right_ ,” said Renjun again, louder.

Sicheng met their eyes. “I have to go to the gala.”

Yuta said, “And do what?” while Renjun said, “No you don’t! They won’t kill him tonight!”

“I have to make sure.”

Renjun put his hands in his hair and said, “God, Jesus, fuck, Sicheng.” Yuta held Sicheng’s shoulders. “Sicheng. Sicheng, think about this. We don’t know anything about… _anything_ they’re planning. It’s past ten. Empathy Tower is two kilometers away. Even if something is planned for one o’clock in the morning or whenever the hell it is, you won’t make it to the president in time. How would you even get in? What would you do?”

“I can get in anywhere I want,” said Sicheng, “remember?”

“You can’t go,” said Renjun.

“There’s no time,” said Yuta. “There’s no time for a plan or anything.”

“And they’re not going to do it tonight!” said Renjun, voice reaching an almost hysterical pitch. “Didn’t we just go over this? You’re essential! They won’t do anything without you! They’ll wait till Moon’s next public schedule!”

“And what if they don’t?” said Sicheng, turning to him, hand falling out of Yuta’s. “What if we’re reading the file wrong? Or if they’ve changed their plans since last month when I got this out of the Opus Building?”

“We need help,” said Yuta, “we need to find someone who…a reporter, the police—”

“They are the police,” Sicheng said.

His tone was harsh, harsh enough to make Yuta go quiet. “Listen,” said Renjun, clawing for Sicheng’s elbow, “Sicheng, you’ll play right into their hands if you go. Once they have you, they can go ahead like they planned it.”

Yuta took a step closer to him. “Yeah, I’m sure right now they’re all like, ‘Oops, well, don’t have eyes on that Sicheng guy, looks like tonight’s a no-go,’ but then if _you_ walk in like ‘Hi I’m here to save the President’—boom, the plan’s back on. You could get him killed just by showing up.”

Sicheng was opening the bedroom door. “So I just stay home and sit on a potential assassination?”

“Yes!” said Yuta, tumbling after Renjun into the living room, where Sicheng was kneeling in front of some boxes and unstacking them.

“I get it,” said Renjun, kneeling next to him, “you don’t want to be the guy who knew the president might get killed and still didn’t do anything about it, I get it. But you can’t do shit! Not right now! Not in the next _two hours!_ ”

Sicheng was pulling the lid off the last bin and removing a bundle of black fabric. He put his mask on his lap and unfolded it. Yuta saw the glint of the torch and said, “Fine. If you’re going, I’m coming with you.”

“No,” said Sicheng, “you’re not.”

“I’ll go to Empathy Tower and find you if you fucking leave without me.”

Sicheng paused. He was holding the torch in his hands. “Yuta.”

“I will.”

Sicheng set the torch on his lap, on top of his mask. In the light, Yuta noticed the stitches around the raised square of the voice changer over the mouth. “Don’t,” said Sicheng, turning his face towards Yuta without looking at him, “don’t put me in this position.”

Yuta knelt and said, “Don’t go and I won’t have to.”

The muscles in Sicheng’s jaw shifted. Yuta touched his chin so Sicheng would look at him. He did.

“Okay?” said Yuta.

A long second passed. Finally, Sicheng dipped his face into Yuta’s hand. Yuta breathed out in relief. “Okay?”

“All right,” said Renjun, “thank you Yuta for bringing this man back to reality. I seem to remember hearing something about some jjimdak earlier, could I possibly find that in these bags…?”

“Let’s put this away,” said Yuta, picking up Sicheng’s bundle of black clothes, “for now.”

Sicheng nodded, wrapped the blowtorch in the mask, and put it back at the bottom of the plastic bin. Yuta shuffled the lid on top of it. Sicheng helped him push it down.

“I was right,” crowed Renjun from the counter, “there _is_ jjimdak in here!”

Sicheng was mostly quiet as they ate the takeout. Renjun and Yuta chattered at each other to fill in the spaces. Renjun kept glancing out of the corner of his eye at Sicheng, as if to check that he was still there. It was a few minutes until Yuta noticed that he himself was doing it too.

Renjun didn’t eat much. When he put down his chopsticks, Yuta told him he should have more, but he just shook his head and kept talking about how hard it was to follow Sicheng’s rules about staying in the apartment during daylight hours and keeping the blinds closed so no one could see in their windows. He stretched his legs out along the gray couch. Then he lay down. Before long, he had fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence, and the room was silent.

Sicheng was sitting against the wall, elbows resting on his bent knees, one foot tapping at the floor, staring at nothing. Yuta wondered whether he’d slept recently. He hadn’t bleached his hair in a while; underneath the blond, his roots were starting to show.

Sicheng blinked to Yuta and said, “Did Renjun just fall asleep?”

Yuta laughed. “Yeah. A few minutes ago, actually.”

“Oh.” Sicheng looked over him. “You’re tired too.”

“Not as tired as him.”

“You looked like your head hurt earlier.”

“A little. But it stopped when we ate.”

Sicheng pushed a lone grain of rice around his place with his chopsticks. “How long were you at work?”

“Ten hours today.”

“Was it a good day?”

He was straining at small talk. He didn’t usually. “Yeah,” said Yuta, “it was good. College kid came in with a hot dog up their nose, that was fantastic.”

“Any backstory on that one?”

“It changed, actually. First it was a dare. Then it was that their friend hit them while they were trying to eat it.”

Sicheng cracked a smile and Yuta yawned.

“Do you want to go to bed?” said Sicheng.

Yuta stood up, stretching. “No. No, not yet.”

“You don’t have to stay up,” said Sicheng.

Yuta held out a hand to him. “Sure. How long has it been since you left this apartment?”

Sicheng took his hand, despite the questioning look on his face, and Yuta pulled him up. “Since you saw me at your old place five days ago?” Yuta asked.

“Yeah,” said Sicheng.

“That’s absurd. We’re going on a walk.”

Sicheng snatched his hand away with a noise of impatience. “No.”

“I know that voice,” said Yuta, “that’s your everyone-has-to-listen-to-me voice. Too bad I don’t have to listen to you.”

“I don’t have an everyone-listen-to-me voice.”

“Ha! Yes you do. You’re using it right now.”

Sicheng seemed to cast around for a way to argue. Then he folded his arms and scowled.

“We’ll put on our masks,” Yuta said, “not your crazy Pyro mask, just regular ones, and we’ll go to the bridge over the stream. Out of the streetlights. Just a few minutes. Do you want to?”

“It’s dangerous.”

“It’s almost eleven,” said Yuta. “There’s no one out on this side of town.”

Sicheng glared at the floor.

“Do you want to?” Yuta said again.

Sicheng’s eyes flicked up and he said in a small voice, “Yes.”

Success. “Okay, come on.”

“Fine,” Sicheng said, while Yuta picked up a pen off the counter and jotted _“On a walk! S + Y”_ on the top of the takeout box. “But no real names.”

“No real names, fine, sure. I’ll call you Winwin and you can call me…hmm…”

“I just won’t call you anything.”

“Can you call me Hot Buns?”

“What? No.”

“How about Honeycakes?”

“No.”

They took the back staircase out a side door and went to the stream Yuta had crossed to get to the apartment. Between the tall residential buildings, the sky was smeared with gray. But as they reached the bridge, the space around them opened up and Sicheng said, “Stars.”

“Stars?”

Sicheng stopped, leaning over the railing and pointing north up the river. There was a corner of clear sky there over the mountains.

Yuta put his elbows on the railing. Summer was coming. There was still heat in the early June air, even hours after the sun went down. There was summer in the smell of the water under the bridge and summer in the distant star-punctuated purple sky. There was summer clinging to the edge of the retreating clouds. Drawing closer.

Yuta leaned closer to him and said, “You could see stars every night if you let Renjun open your window shades.”

“Not worth it.”

“I’m not accusing you of being paranoid. But I’m also not _not_ accusing you of being paranoid.”

“It’s not paranoia, it’s just being careful.”

Sicheng was looking at the water. Yuta looked down too. Its creases where it folded over rocks or along curves were filled in with soft-edged silver. It was reflected in Sicheng’s eyes too, that dull glow of the muggy city night.

“Baby?” Yuta said.

The glow caught in his eyes as he turned them to Yuta. Yuta thought he was smiling under the mask.

“There’s something I still don’t understand,” said Yuta.

Sicheng inclined his head just barely, or gave the impression of doing so by looking Yuta down and up, and Yuta said, “The Four? The project team?”

Sicheng’s glow thinned and he made an “mm” sound.

“I guess,” said Yuta, “I know they were all you had for a long time. So it makes sense that you feel for them. But after all this…”

Sicheng said, “After all this what?”

“It’s just—why do you still care about them?”

Sicheng looked out toward the mountains.

“You don’t trust them, but you have to protect them. They try to hurt you, but you want to help them,” Yuta said. “They kidnapped your whole brother, why do you still feel like you owe them anything?”

“Because,” said Sicheng, “I betrayed them.”

His voice vanished into the night air like smoke dissipating. Yuta swallowed.

“I left them alone,” Sicheng went on, “and put them in more danger, and made everything harder for them. I put them in an impossible position.” He turned to Yuta, and his eyes were shiny again, wide, almost pleading. “I have to try to make up for that.”

Yuta faced him fully. “Sicheng, you left because it was the right thing to do. They should have gone with you, not tried to keep you there.”

Sicheng sniffed. A second later, he swiped at his eyes with his sleeve. Yuta’s throat went tighter and he raised a hand to Sicheng’s face, wiping away a tear.

“They’ve been in there since they were kids,” Sicheng said, “it’s not their fault.”

Yuta touched his eyebrow. “It’s not your fault either.”

Sicheng squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, tears clung to his lashes. Yuta put his arms around his shoulders, feeling Sicheng fold into him gratefully. The bridge was quiet. The water murmured.

“You’re so hard on yourself,” Yuta said.

“You always say that.”

Yuta let go of him and brushed the wetness away from his eyes again. “You know why I always say it? Because I’m right. Because you never forgive yourself for anything, even things that are out of your control.”

Sicheng said, “I think you have more compassion in one toenail than the rest of us have in our entire bodies.”

“Don’t,” said Yuta, softly, “don’t distract me with sweet nothings, we were talking about you.”

“It wasn’t a sweet nothing,” Sicheng said. The tears were gone from his voice and his face.

Yuta shrugged and said, “The truth is, I’m not very nice to other people. I’ve fooled you into thinking it’s my actual personality, being nice, but really it’s only for you. You bring out the best in me.”

“I do?” Sicheng said.

Yuta had been half-joking as he spoke, but when he finished, he realized it was true. This was the best part of him. This was the most he had ever cared for and fought for anyone.

“Yeah,” Yuta said. “You make me strong.”

There were more words at the bottom of his throat, but he didn’t say them. Instead he went silent as Sicheng pulled Yuta’s mask down and looked over him. Yuta reached up to lower Sicheng’s mask, and to his surprise, Sicheng let him. They stood silently. Sicheng’s hand was still on Yuta’s chin. His thumb rose to Yuta’s lower lip, and Yuta let his lips part as Sicheng pressed down.

“I think you make me brave,” said Sicheng with a shade of amazement.

Yuta closed his eyes, and Sicheng’s fingertips moved to Yuta’s cheek. Then his mouth was kissing the tingling place where the pressure of his thumb had just disappeared. Like a magic spell. A secret talisman, a lucky charm.

Yuta wanted to stay up until 1:25, but instead he fell asleep shortly after they got back to the apartment. He had a dream that Sicheng was whispering his name, and when he answered, Sicheng said, “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

When he awoke fully, he was alone on the mattress. He reached for his phone. 12:01. Midnight.

He got up. No one was in the apartment except for Renjun, still asleep on the couch. The box with the mask and clothes was empty, and there was a note on top of the takeout box, and Sicheng’s phone on top of the note. “ _I just need to make sure. I’ll be back in the morning. Don’t let Yuta do anything stupid. S_ ”

Yuta pressed the heels of his hands against his forehead. Then he picked up the pen, wrote, “ _Off to do something stupid! xx Yuta_ ,” and left to get the subway to Empathy Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you knew sicheng was gonna do it
> 
> potential triggers in chapter 15: intimidation, threats, kidnapping/capturing, hypnosis??, falling, near-death experience


	15. Chapter 15

When Yuta arrived at Empathy Tower, it was almost 12:20 in the morning. He didn’t know, as he walked the square block around the building, how he was going to get in. He didn’t know what he was going to do if he did get in. He figured that Sicheng must be looking for the president right now. That was all Yuta had to do—find the president. Maybe just get eyes on him if he could, and go from there.

The front and side entrances of Empathy Tower, the ones that opened onto the street, were festooned with decorations for the gala. A red carpet dotted with gold confetti lined the broad front steps where all the rich people had entered earlier in the evening. On the subway, Yuta had found a picture of President Moon going up the steps in a blue suit, turning halfway to wave behind him, face arranged into a dashing half-smile. Twitter was in an uproar over the way his ass looked in the blue pants. There were cameras flashing in the background of the picture and people straining at the rope to call out to him. The reporters were gone now, the sidewalks along the entrance strewn with bits of paper and trash. Twice, Yuta saw the front doors open, allowing old couples in fancy eveningwear to exit down the steps to their limousine at the street. A security guard stood at each of the four massive doors. The same was true at the smaller side entrance.

Yuta bit his nails. Time was passing. He’d already been walking around the building for ten minutes. He had to find a different way in before someone noticed him lurking.

He doubled back up the block and went behind the skyscraper next door. The building was closed, and he was able to cut through the parking garage to the back side of Empathy Tower. It was dark back here, except for lamps over two small doors in the walls of the tower. One door was close to the edge of the parking garage where Yuta stood, and another was further down, along a ramp leading underground to a metal grate. Yuta looked up and down the path. There must be security cameras here, right? Did it matter right now?

There was a bucket in the corner of the parking garage. In it was a spade, crusted with something grayish, and an inch of chalk-smelling liquid. Yuta picked it up, trooped right up to the door like he knew what he was doing, and turned the handle.

Locked.

He swore, and just as he did, he heard the sound of an engine starting. He jumped and ran back to the parking garage next door. A moment later, the metal grate at the bottom of the ramp into Empathy Tower rolled up. A truck trundled out. Yuta almost made a run for the opening, but it was too far away, and the slatted metal door was rolling back down now, and the truck was still coming up the path.

Yuta ducked further into the shadows of the parking garage. He heard the truck stop, and then voices. He peered around the wall. There! The smaller door—it was open! A person was walking through it, getting into the truck. The door was already falling shut. The truck started up again. A second later, the driver’s window passed Yuta by and he darted out of the parking garage and behind the truck. The door had almost closed. He dove.

When the blood stopped rushing in his ears, he was splayed out on the ground, his knee was throbbing, the bucket was spilling its murky contents onto the asphalt beside him, and the door was caught in his fingertips.

“Yes!”

He scrambled up and tried to right himself. Then he pulled the door open as confidently as he could and walked inside with his bucket and spade.

To his relief, there was no one in sight. There was only a nondescript hallway that extended to his left and right as far as he could see, and another hallway in front of him that ended at an elevator. Yuta picked a direction at random and started walking. He couldn’t believe it. He’d gotten inside. He was inside Empathy Tower. He just needed to find Sicheng now. Where would he be right now? The President was probably on the first floor, entertaining the remaining gala guests, and if not, he’d be somewhere close by. Yuta checked the time. _12:31_. He had less than an hour until the time listed on the file.

One hour to find Sicheng.

Yuta almost jumped out of his skin when he noticed someone emerging from a room down the hallway. He put his phone back in his pocket, sucking in a breath through his nose. The other man was walking straight towards him. Yuta smoothed his forehead and gave the man a nod, gesturing slightly with the bucket.

“G’night,” said the man as he passed Yuta by.

“Night,” Yuta called, striding on down the hallway. He had almost arrived at the elevator. He resisted the urge to look behind him and hit the ‘up’ button for the elevator. Up? Why up? Wasn’t he supposed to be canvassing the first floor? Whatever. It was too late now. He squared his feet and tried to look like he was supposed to be there.

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Fucking shit. There was a woman inside—a woman in a suit, with a tablet and a headpiece. She glanced at Yuta, and he stepped inside the elevator miserably, shooting a big smile at her.

“Big night, mm?” she said.

“Feels like it gets bigger every year,” Yuta agreed.

“That’s the great thing about it. Do me a favor and let me know your name so I can make sure we have you.”

“Have me?”

“Yes, on the list,” she said with a cool smile.

“Right,” said Yuta, nodding, “sure. Nakamoto Yuta.”

He couldn’t think of a fake name fast enough, and he was afraid she’d ask for ID. Silence followed as she clicked at her tablet. Yuta realized he’d never hit a floor number. The woman was headed for 44, and they were climbing fast. _19\. 20. 21._

“Spell it for me?” said the lady.

“N,” said Yuta. “A.”

“Okay,” said the lady, in a tone that sounded like the opposite of what she said. Yuta was starting to realize how half-baked the idea to come in here like this had been.

He said, “It’s there, right? Great,” and arbitrarily tapped the 40 button.

“Don’t see it yet, sorry. What comes after the A?”

Yuta cleared his throat. “K.”

The elevator hit floor 40 and opened. Yuta stepped out and began to walk down the hall, saying, “This is me. My name’s in there. Nakamoto Yuta. You can talk to Kim Jongin from maintenance if it’s not.”

Kim Jongin was the name of a friend he’d had in college. As far as Yuta knew, he was still back in Soshi. “Sorry,” said the woman calmly, “I’m going to need you to hang on for just a moment.”

“How long will this take?” said Yuta with as much bravado as he could muster. “I have to finish sealing a pipe before my shift ends at 1.”

“Of course, I understand. It won’t be long.”

“Look,” said Yuta, feet quickening, “talk to Kim. That pipe is leaking sewage all over one of the conference rooms, and my job gets harder every second that—”

“Conference rooms?” said the woman.

“Yes, one of the—”

“On the 40th floor?”

The woman was staring at him. Yuta stopped. Were there no conference rooms on the 40th floor?

“Shoot, is this 40?” he tried to backtrack, “I must have hit the wrong button,” but the woman was already holding down a button at her ear and talking into her mouthpiece. Yuta turned and powerwalked to the corner.

“Stop!” the woman shouted.

He rounded the corner and broke into a run. He could see a door with a staircase icon at the end of the hall: STAIRWAY C. He threw his full weight onto the push bar, and the door swung open. Relief flooded him as he burst through the doorway. The relief was cut, sharply, when he slammed right into a body on the other side of the door.

Yuta staggered back, hand scrabbling at the wall for support. With the momentum he’d had when he crashed through the door, he should have bowled this person to the ground. Instead, he’d practically ricocheted off them, like a basketball off a wall.

His eyes went up the solid frame, the black uniform, the white sunburst on the chest. The man was taller than Yuta. He had no mask on, and his handsome face was curling into an incredulous smile.

“Hey,” he said, and Yuta recognized his voice instantly. “I know you.”

Yuta reached behind him for the door handle. The Hammer caught his arm.

“You’re the dude from the bank,” said the Hammer. Yuta tried to twist away, but the Hammer held him effortlessly. He was laughing. “So this is a team effort, huh? You’re here to help him?”

“Help who?” Yuta said, yanking his arm as hard as he could.

The Hammer took out some sort of pager and held a button before saying into it, “Floor 40, threat minimized. 2, over.” Then he put the device in his pocket and leaned down, so his face was level with Yuta’s.

“Never would have thought that kid was so good at making friends,” he said, looking Yuta over. “What’s your name again?”

“Sir Meowsalot,” Yuta spat.

The Hammer stood back up. “Nah, that wasn’t it. Something like Yuko. Yuka. Tuka.”

“Let go of me.”

“What’s with the bucket?”

Yuta, unable to restrain himself, swung the bucket at the Hammer’s head. It was plastic, and bounced off like a pingpong ball. “That wasn’t very polite,” said the Hammer, taking it in his huge hand and crumpling it effortlessly.

Yuta watched, his fury crystallizing to fear, as the shards of plastic fell away and the Hammer was left holding the little spade. He turned it this way and that. “Wow,” said the Hammer, “nice. You could scoop out somebody’s eye with this. If you had a really straight shot and time to angle it perfectly. Otherwise, maybe just make a little dent in somebody’s skull.”

“It’s not for hurting anyone,” said Yuta.

“Then what’s it for?”

Yuta wanted to kick him, but fear held him back.

“Come on,” said the Hammer, jerking Yuta’s arm up the staircase. “There’s someone who’s going to want to see you. Oh, and give me your phone.”

Yuta’s heart was pounding with dread. They knew Sicheng was here. That must mean they had him.

“Give me your fucking phone,” the Hammer repeated.

He tightened his grip on Yuta’s wrist. Yuta gasped and dug his iPhone out of his pocket, throwing it onto the floor. It clattered down a few stairs before stopping. The Hammer, with an almost good-natured sigh, bent to pick it up and said, “No wonder. You’re the same as he is. All feisty,” before yanking Yuta up the steps sharply enough to make Yuta trip.

Yuta struggled to his feet, almost pedaling them to keep up with the Hammer, who was taking the steps two at a time without stopping for breath. Yuta counted the flights. Floor 43. Floor 44. Floor 45. “Where are we going?” Yuta panted.

The Hammer smiled down at him. He wasn’t even breathing heavily. “All the way.”

Yuta’s legs were burning by the time they passed out of the light of the 49th landing and stopped in front of a dark doorway. The Hammer punched at a keypad with numbers that lit up blue, and then the door swung open.

“He said he’ll be on B3 at one o’clock,” a voice was saying.

The roof was floodlit. Yuta blinked into the light.

“I’m baaack,” sang the Hammer.

“Johnny, what the fuck?”

It was Hypnos. She was standing with her arms crossed, radiant in the pale glare.

“Look who I found,” said the Hammer.

The wind on the roof whipped Yuta’s hair back. He could see a lamp pouring white light, a boy sitting on a cinderblock, another man facing away, and…

“It’s Sicheng’s little spy,” said the Hammer. “The guy from the bank. Yuka or whatever.”

Sicheng.

“No,” groaned the slim boy sitting on the cinderblock, “please, no, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Johnny, we have to go to the basement in ten minutes, why did you bring him up here?” said Hypnos.

Sicheng sat on his heels under the floodlight, hands tied on his lap. His mask was on the ground, and so were his gloves, with the torch lying next to them. His mouth was open, and his eyes were fixed on Yuta.

“So he and Sicheng could say hi,” said the Hammer, “before we have to get rid of him.”

“I don’t know him,” said Sicheng.

They ignored him. “We don’t have to get rid of him,” said the boy on the cinderblock, who must be Sparrow.

“Well now that Johnny’s dragged him up here, we do,” said Hypnos.

The Hammer said, “Yeah, Jaemin, what exactly do you propose we do with him?”

Sparrow gestured at Hypnos. “Joy can hypnotize him and make him leave.”

“And have him wake up later and remember this whole conversation he heard before he got hypnotized? Great plan,” said Hypnos.

“I don’t know who that is,” Sicheng said louder.

The Hammer finally turned to Sicheng, laughing. “You expect us to believe it’s just a coincidence that the guy wandering around Empathy Tower without clearance, at the same time you’re here, is the same guy you took hostage at the bank? Hey, Kun!”

All of them, even Sicheng, looked to the man standing further away, who had been gazing off over the lights of the city. For the first time, he turned around. He had a strong jaw and full features, and his gaze landed on Yuta dispassionately.

“Any thoughts on what we do with Sicheng’s accomplice?” said the Hammer.

Kinetic’s voice echoed Yuta’s memory from the bank. “How do we know he’s Sicheng’s accomplice?”

“You don’t. He’s not,” said Sicheng.

“Ooh,” said the Hammer, wriggling, “hang on. Incoming.” He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to Hypnos and Sparrow, who peered closer as Kinetic turned away again. It was a phone. Yuta’s phone, and Taeyong’s contact picture lit up the screen. Taeyong was calling him.

“Let’s pick up,” said the Hammer cheerfully.

Hypnos hissed, “Johnny, don’t be fucking st—”

The Hammer swiped, and tiny sound crackled. The Hammer hit the speakerphone button. “—hello?” Taeyong’s voice said, loud and clear.

Yuta looked up in horror at the Hammer, who grinned and nodded encouragingly. Hypnos rolled her eyes. “Uh,” said Yuta, “hey, hi.”

“Yuta!”

The Hammer snapped his fingers and opened his mouth wide, tapping his head.

“Hey,” said Yuta.

“Why’s it so windy?”

Yuta bent his face closer to the phone and said, “Uh…I think that’s just the fan you’re hearing. Hey, I’m a little—tied up right now, is everything all right or could I…?”

“No, yeah, everything’s fine, I just wanted to check on you. How come you didn’t answer any of my messages?”

“I was just busy.”

“Ah,” said Taeyong, “okay, sorry. I guess I’ve just been worrying about you a lot since, like, the bank and the stuff with Sicheng and everything. Sorry for being paranoid—”

The Hammer and Hypnos’s eyebrows had shot up. Sparrow put his hand over his mouth. Sicheng closed his eyes.

Yuta cut Taeyong off, saying, “No, no. You’re fine. I’m just!” He scrambled. “I’m just at the supermarket, you know? Getting some apples. Some kumquats!”

Sparrow frowned.

“Some kumquats,” Taeyong repeated.

“Yeah, kumquats,” Yuta said, voice edging into panic.

“Oh,” said Taeyong.

The Hammer and Hypnos looked at each other. “Where?” said Taeyong.

“It’s,” said Yuta, “this twenty-four hour market by Empathy Tower. I couldn’t find them anywhere else.”

Taeyong was quiet for a beat. Then he said, “I’ll come too. For the kumquats.”

“Cool,” said Yuta, and glanced at the Hammer, who was rolling his hand in a _“wrap it up”_ motion. “Anyway, yeah,” said Yuta, “uh, thanks for calling, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Uh huh,” said Taeyong.

The Hammer hung up the call. He looked at Yuta and said, “That was weird. Why were you talking about grocery shopping at one o’clock in the morning?”

“He likes…” Yuta’s voice was almost gone. “…exotic fruits?”

The Hammer glanced at the screen again. “Lee Taeyong,” he read off Taeyong’s contact. “What does this guy know about Sicheng?”

Yuta shook his head, unable to speak.

“He doesn’t know anything,” said Sicheng. “Neither of them know anything. Just let him leave.”

Hypnos made an “urgh” sound and kicked Sicheng’s blowtorch so it skittered away across the roof.

“Right,” said the Hammer, “he definitely knows nothing at all. He totally didn’t come in here to help you sabotage our operation. No way. He was just looking for the Starbucks and got lost.”

“No! He’s not here to sabotage anything!” Sicheng said. “He’s not a spy, he’s not my helper, he’s just someone I love who came here by mistake. He’s innocent. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Yuta felt something in him stutter to a halt at Sicheng’s words. Sicheng was staring at the Hammer beseechingly.

“You know it’s not about whether he’s done anything, Sicheng,” the Hammer said. He went closer to him, pulling Yuta with him, and Yuta could see the silvery threads binding Sicheng’s wrists in front of him. “I’m sure he’s a great guy,” said the Hammer, gesturing at Yuta. “In fact, I like him, I think he’s got a lot of nerve, but what would Papa Ahn say if we just let him walk out of here?”

“Please stop calling him Papa Ahn,” said Hypnos, as Sparrow kicked at the floor and muttered, “No loose ends, no loose ends.”

“No loose ends,” the Hammer agreed. “And then what would he make us do at four o’clock in the morning after all this is over? Go out and tie up.”

Sicheng’s eyes had met Yuta’s, and they were wide, and desperate, and saying so much and nothing all at once. As Yuta looking back at him helplessly, Sicheng started shouting. “You can say no! You don’t have to hurt an innocent person, you have a choice!”

“God, would you stop whining?” said Hypnos suddenly, her shadow cutting through the floodlight as she went towards him.

“Joy?” said Sicheng.

She put her hand on Sicheng’s head. Yuta, panic sweeping him, strained at the Hammer’s grip, but the Hammer held him back effortlessly.

“Joy…” Sicheng’s voice went softer. “Don’t…not to me…”

“Cut it out, Joy,” said Sparrow.

She didn’t spare him a glance. The Hammer was watching with narrowed eyes. Sicheng’s gaze was unfocusing.

“Stop it!” said Sparrow, the pitch of his voice rising steeply. Kinetic glanced back over his shoulder, brows furrowed. Sparrow stood up. “We promised we’d never use it on each other!”

“ _We?_ ” Hypnos dropped her hand from Sicheng’s head, and Sicheng’s eyes rolled forward, finding Yuta. “Jaemin, he’s not one of us anymore!”

“Johnny,” said Sparrow, turning to the Hammer.

“Jaemin, I don’t know if your memory’s fuzzy,” said the Hammer, somewhere between impatience and simpering, “but here’s a refresher. Sicheng literally set our house on fire and ran away. His decision. He chose to leave us.”

Sparrow looked back and forth helplessly between the Hammer and Hypnos. Then he cast his face downwards and wiped at his nose. “This is fucked up,” he said, sitting down and wrapping his arms around his knees.

“We’re not kids in training anymore, Jaemin,” said Hypnos. “Grow up.”

“You’ve changed,” Sicheng said quietly. He sounded as if he could barely speak. “They’ve changed all of you.”

“Fucking shut up, Sicheng,” said Hypnos, rounding on him, fingers landing on his forehead. His eyelids started to fall shut.

“Stop.”

Kinetic’s voice was flat. He stepped forward, taking hold of Yuta’s elbow. Hypnos turned around, not lowering her palm, and Sicheng’s mouth began to go slack.

“I’m sick of it,” said Kinetic. He yanked Yuta closer to him. Yuta wobbled, caught between him and the Hammer. “I’m taking care of this,” Kinetic said. “Let go, Johnny.”

“What are you gonna do?” said the Hammer, releasing Yuta’s arm, while Hypnos’s hand fell to her side and Sicheng’s chin nodded into his chest.

“Throw him off the edge,” said Kinetic.

“No,” muttered Sicheng, head still lolling.

“What if someone sees?” said Hypnos.

“Then we get Kim’s people to say he jumped,” said the Hammer.

“No,” said Kinetic, “I’ll move his body to the street and down a few blocks. It’ll look like a hit and run.”

“Pretty nasty hit and run,” said the Hammer, grimacing.

“Can you reach a few blocks?” Hypnos said.

“If he says he can reach, he can reach,” said the Hammer.

“This is so fucked up,” said Sparrow, his head in his hands, foot tapping at the cement surface of the roof.

“Life’s fucked up,” said Hypnos.

“You can’t…do this…” Sicheng slurred. He was struggling to hold his head upright. “He’s good…he’s only…”

“Look, Sicheng,” said the Hammer, squatting in front of him, “you know what Papa Ahn is like. We don’t _want_ to kill him. Nobody’s enjoying this. We just can’t afford to take any risks here.”

Sicheng paid no attention to the Hammer. With effort, he straightened his head long enough to look straight at Kinetic and said, “Kun, this isn’t you.”

A muscle twitched in Kinetic’s tightly set jaw and then he shoved Yuta forward as if Sicheng hadn’t spoken. Yuta staggered, looking over his shoulder for Sicheng, and their gazes met. The warmth in Sicheng’s brown eyes was dim.

Finally Yuta found his voice. “What the fuck is wrong with you people? You’re supposed to be superheroes! People look up to you! Little _kids_ look up to you!”

He thrashed ineffectually as Kinetic hauled him across the roof. The Hammer was watching them with a single indifferent eyebrow raised. Hypnos’s face was stony. Sparrow had covered his with his hands.

“People _believe_ in you,” screamed Yuta, “they believe you’re the good guys, and you’re just going to…do a—a _murder?_ That’s what this is, murder! What about my rights? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? How can you claim to be protectors of the people when you’re _murdering_ one of the people? You’re not the good guys! You’re fucking cowards!”

Kinetic was dragging him closer to the edge of the roof. He was shorter than the Hammer, and thinner, but his grip was just as rigid. He yanked on Yuta’s wrists, saying in his ear, “Don’t struggle, it’ll make this more difficult.”

“Fuck you,” Yuta growled. “You were my favorite. I thought you were the coolest.” He gave one last futile squirm against Kinetic’s grip. “I _liked_ you motherfuckers. I trusted you assholes.”

Kinetic pulled Yuta to the edge and planted one boot against the lip of the roof to brace himself, leaning Yuta back into open air. A new flash of fear wracked Yuta’s body, whiting everything else out for a second. He looked over Kinetic’s shoulder for Sicheng, for anyone, but the figures washed pale in the floodlight across the roof were too distant to recognize. He heard his own voice scream, “HELP!”

“No one can hear you from up here,” said Kinetic.

“Hold still so I can kick you in the nuts.”

Kinetic looked into his eyes and said, “It’s going to be okay.”

“If you hurt a single fucking hair on his head, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you for the rest of your piece of shit life,” Yuta snarled.

Kinetic smiled, just a little. Then he put his hands on Yuta’s shoulders and pushed.

For a brilliant, vivid, impossibly long second, Yuta was only aware of the feeling of freefall. Then there was an image. Pink light on the river, and snow.

Abruptly, the feeling of falling ceased. Yuta’s skin was crawling. His eyes were squeezed shut. He opened them.

He was faced with pavement, gravelly, dark, centimeters from his eyes. It was below him. He wasn’t touching it. He was hovering, just above the ground. His nerves tingled, and he thought he must be dead, but suddenly he fell out of the air and his forehead smacked against the asphalt.

“Owww…”

He rolled over. The skin-crawly feeling was gone. Was he dead? He flexed his hands. No, he wasn’t dead. He was on the ground outside Empathy Tower. He looked up the side of it, past the glowing windows, past the dark ones, to the roof.

Kinetic still stood at the edge, a black shadow lined white by the light. Yuta drew up his knees and got to his feet. Kinetic watched him for another moment. Then he stepped back, disappearing from sight.

Yuta put his hand to his forehead. There was blood. A scrape from when he’d dropped to the sidewalk. From when Kinetic had dropped him. Kinetic—he’d broken Yuta’s fall, just before he hit the ground. He’d saved him.

Yuta stumbled on jelly legs to the wall of Empathy Tower and collapsed against it. He was in an alley. There was a light at either end. Here, in the middle, there was only darkness. He closed his eyes and breathed. In for two. Out for two.

He had to get back in. Sicheng was still up there. What about Kinetic? If he had let Yuta go, would he let Sicheng go? But if he were going to let Sicheng go, wouldn’t he have done it already? It didn’t matter—Yuta couldn’t just leave. Hadn’t Hypnos said something about meeting in the basement soon? How could he get into the basement?

Yuta felt in his back pocket. Thank god—his burner phone hadn’t fallen out. He flipped it open and pulled up Renjun’s number.

“Hello,” Renjun said groggily into the phone.

“Hey. It’s Yuta. I need your help.”

“What?”

“I have no idea if this is possible. I don’t even really know what I’m asking. But can you hack the Empathy Gala personnel list?”

“Hack the…” Something clanked in the background of the call. “Fuck! Are you guys there?”

“They got him,” said Yuta.

“Fuck. Fuck. What am I hacking?”

“The Empathy Gala personnel list. Or the invitee list, I don’t know. Just get me in the building.”

“Personnel list, what personnel list?”

“I went inside and tried to pretend I was a plumber or something,” Yuta said, “but I got caught because this lady had a list and my name wasn’t on it.”

“Let me see.” There was the sound of clacking keys. “Where are you right now?”

“Somewhere behind the tower,” said Yuta, looking up and down the alley, which looked similar to the paved path where he’d caught the open door earlier.

More clicking. “What did you mean, they got him?”

Yuta took another long breath. In for two. “After the lady got me, the Hammer came and took me to the roof and Sicheng was up there and then Kinetic pushed me off the roof but he stopped me before I hit the ground.”

“Holy shit.”

“I need to get into the basement, I think they said they were going there next.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m all right.”

“What are you going to do?”

Yuta got to his feet unsteadily. “Try to get him free if I can. They have him tied up in those—what are they called. Those threads that take away his powers.”

“Suppressor threads.”

“Yeah.”

Renjun muttered something unintelligible.

“What?”

“Yuta,” Renjun said suddenly, “can you get to a garage door?”

“A garage door? Yeah, sure, which one?”

“I’m looking at a map of basement level 1. There are 2 big garage doors. G1 and G2. They’re accessible from ground level. I think I can get them open, but I don’t know if it’ll set off an alarm.”

Yuta had started running. “I’ll find…”

“What side of the building are you on?”

Yuta passed under a light, trying to think how many the turns he’d made since he’d walked in the building on the west side, but his brain was scrambled. “I don’t know. I think north.”

“Looks like there’s a loading dock on the east side and some kind of ramp on the west, can you get to either of those?”

That must be the same ramp the truck had rolled through earlier. “I think so. Can you open it?”

“Tell me when you have eyes on it.”

Yuta’s feet pounded around the corner. There was the ramp disappearing into the ground, and the small door where he’d entered before. It was closed again. “I see it,” said Yuta, dropping three meters to the bottom of the ramp and landing in front of the garage door. “G2.”

“Give me five seconds.”

Yuta counted. Five. Four. Three. Two.

The grate shuddered and began to roll up. “Yes,” breathed Yuta, ducking inside.

“Are you in?”

“Yeah.”

“No alarm?”

“Nothing I can hear. Renjun,” Yuta said, looking around the dim garage, “I have to go now. I don’t think I can talk.”

“Wait,” said Renjun, “can your phone record audio?”

Yuta crouched behind a pillar. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. Hit record and put it in your pocket. If you can’t get Sicheng, get them on tape saying something.”

“Okay,” Yuta said.

“And text me if you need another door opened, they didn’t notice I’m in yet, I still haven’t been kicked out.”

“Sweet, thanks.”

“Yuta.”

“Yeah.”

Renjun spoke fast. “He’d kill me if I didn’t tell you this. Don’t fucking get hurt, okay?”

“Sure,” whispered Yuta, “I swear on all my IU photocards.”

“Your what?”

“Never mind. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Okay.”

Yuta hung up and crept behind a row of empty carts to a wall. There was only one door that he could see. He tried it. Locked.

_door G5?_

_2 minutes_

Yuta looked at the time. It was already 1:03 in the morning. Hadn’t Hypnos said they were going to the basement at 1:00?

_Try now_ , Renjun messaged.

The door opened. Yuta stumbled into darkness and immediately, lights went up one by one down the hall, illuminating a low-ceilinged passageway. Yuta froze as the door to the garage fell shut behind him. The lights were motion-sensored. Anyone inside the rooms lining the hall would know he was here now. He ducked into the dark stairway on his left and listened for a sound.

Nothing yet. The sign on the landing said B1. He combed back through the conversation he’d heard on the roof. What level had Hypnos mentioned? B2? B3?

Yuta’s memory connected then and he slapped a hand over his mouth. Oh god. Taeyong. Taeyong! He’d called and Yuta had dropped the alarm word on him without any explanation. Taeyong probably thought he was in mortal danger. _“I’ll come too,”_ Taeyong had said. He wasn’t actually coming now, was he? Yuta _had_ been in mortal danger, of course, but Taeyong would do more harm than good if he tried to get into Empathy Tower right now.

Yuta pulled out his burner again and tried to summon Taeyong’s phone number to mind. He’d never properly memorized it. He punched some digits into the phone, hoped it was right, and sent a message. _hey ty its ur favorite uaena sorry that was such a weird phone call but everythings all right now <3_

_???? why did you say the kumquat thing did something happen?? are you at empathy tower? because i’m almost there_

The moment the message came in, Yuta heard a door open.

He jumped into the corner.

“…nothing we can do about that.” “That’s what I was saying.”

The voices were echoing. They weren’t down the hall. They were down the stairs.

Yuta almost ran out of the stairway and into the hall but then the voices stopped, and someone said, “What?” and the other voice—yes, it was Hypnos’s—said slowly, “Why’s there a light on up there?”

Yuta held his breath.

“What light?” said the Hammer.

“From the hallway, not the stairs.” Yuta could hear her footsteps climbing. “Aren’t the basement lights on motion sensors?”

“Yeah? Maybe it was one of the workers. Who cares? Come on, we’re already behind schedule.”

“I thought Byun restricted clearance for the basement at midnight.”

Her feet had stopped at the bottom of the flight that went down from Yuta’s landing. Yuta was around the corner, pressing himself into the wall.

“It doesn’t matter.” It was Kinetic. “We’re going to B4, not up.”

Yuta heard movement again, and a second later Hypnos said “Fine,” and pattered back down the stairs.

“If Papa yells at us for being late, I’m telling him it was your fault,” said the Hammer, and Hypnos said, “If you call him Papa one more time…” The Hammer said, “What? You’ll hit me?”

Yuta heard the push bar of a door clank open a few floors down. “I’ll do worse than that,” said Hypnos’s voice. Yuta peeked around the corner as the door clacked shut. There was no one on the landing. Yuta sprinted down the stairs until he found level B4. He pushed the door open just slightly, saw movement down the hall, and pulled away from the doorway. Then he peered through the crack just in time to see a door on the left fall shut.

Yuta tucked himself into the wall, breathing. He had to follow them into that room. But what if they saw him? He took his phone out. Taeyong had said he was almost at Empathy Tower.

_ur almost here?? no its ok!!! go home,_ Yuta texted.

Taeyong replied, _can you just call me? i’m outside, i’ll pick you up_

_sry cant call right now_

Yuta opened the door a few more centimeters and waited. There was light, but no sound. He counted down from three. Then he slipped through the door to a hallway with a low ceiling, like the first basement level, and a cool, stale smell, as if it had neither been heated nor been airconditioned in a long time. He walked to the door that he’d seen open and close. He put his hand on the doorknob. Nope.

 _are you in trouble???_ Taeyong had messaged.

Yuta texted Renjun, _B416?_ and told Taeyong, _im fine! please just go home_

As Renjun’s message came back— _Done_ —Yuta found the audio recorder on his phone, pressed the start button, put it in his pocket, and slowly turned the doorknob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did y'all know kinetic was kun be honest
> 
> sorry the superheroes are so ooc lol it had to be done
> 
> scroll down for warnings about the next chapter...
> 
> potential triggers in chapter 16: fire, fighting, punching, blood, broken bones, manipulation, non-fatal choking/asphyxiation, assassination attempt, being trapped


	16. Chapter 16

The light coming through the cracked door was blue.

There was a whirring noise as well, like a dozen computers running disk drives at the same time, and voices. Yuta recognized Hypnos’s, the Hammer’s, and another that was lower and gruffer.

Ahn Han Geun.

“We’re more than five minutes behind,” Ahn was saying.

“I know. Sicheng’s S.O. threw us off,” the Hammer answered.

“But it’s taken care of,” said Hypnos. “We can still make up the time.”

Their voices weren’t immediate—rather, they were faded, almost muffled, as if the sound was making its way over shelves or between boxes. Yuta held his phone close to the crack, but he wasn’t sure if it was picking up the voices clearly. He had to get closer.

He eased open the door another centimeter as Ahn said roughly, “We might have been able to if you hadn’t left the coil on the first floor after you found Three.”

Yuta could see into the room now. It was two stories, maybe three, and he was at the top of it. Blue light was shining up from the bottom of the room through a railing. It appeared that he had opened a door onto a second level. There were file cabinets in front of him, and a walkway that led to stairs.

“I know,” said Hypnos as Yuta crawled through the door and behind a row of file cabinets. “It was careless.”

“All these years.” Ahn Han Geun’s sigh was brittle. “Training. Preparing. Perfecting.”

“I’m sorry,” said Hypnos in a small voice.

“And tonight,” Ahn said, “is the night you choose to make a mistake.”

The second-story walkway where Yuta sat curved partway around the room. It was a few meters wide. Yuta snuck a look between the cabinets and through the railing. He still couldn’t see anyone, only blue light drawing the ghostly outlines of more cabinets and a table. He went closer to the railing, whose bars were thin, searching for a glimpse of the floor.

He saw the heads of three people a few meters below and threw himself back behind the cabinets as Hypnos said, “We don’t have to wait for Jaemin. We don’t need the coil. I can—”

“Ah, you want a repeat of the last five times you almost had him?” Ahn’s voice had gotten louder. Scarier. “When he got away because you didn’t secure the suppressor threads? Is that what you want, One?”

“No, sir,” said Hypnos.

“No,” said Ahn. He sounded calm again. “Of course not. We wait until we have everything we need.”

Everything they needed? To do what? Yuta took out his phone to make sure it was still recording and saw three messages from Taeyong. He almost pulled his hair out of his head.

_yuta i want to help just tell me where you are. i’m in the basement i think_

_YUTA ARE YOU OKAY??_

_i just followed somebody and then followed somebody else and now i think i’m following a member of the fighting four ?$?/@ hang tight i’m omw_

Yuta was halfway through typing _STOP. LEAVE_ when he heard Ahn say more softly, “Three. It’s been a long time.”

Three. He was talking to Sicheng. Sicheng was here.

“Have you missed us as much as we missed you?”

There was no answer. Yuta crawled along the row of filing cabinets until he found a bigger gap between them and he could see, through the bars of the railing, the side of Ahn Han Geun’s head, as well as Hypnos and the Hammer. The Hammer had his face turned into the blue light, whose source was under the walkway, where Yuta couldn’t see. He was playing with something—turning it over in his hands. The spade from Yuta’s bucket. Hypnos was watching Ahn, who was crouching, looking up, the way one does when talking to a child.

Ahn said sadly, “Half a year and you still have nothing to say.”

Yuta shifted again. There was Sicheng. He was hunched over and motionless. Yuta couldn’t see his face. Kinetic held his arm.

“He’s been like this since Kun got rid of that guy,” said the Hammer. “And Joy put him half-under earlier and I don’t think he ever came out of it.”

“She did what?” said Ahn sharply. “That wasn’t in the plan.”

The Hammer stuttered. “I mean—she—he was making noise and she had to—”

“We don’t know how that might affect his resistance the next time,” said Ahn.

“Yes, but…”

Yuta was fighting the urge to scream out, “Sicheng! I’m alive! I’m here!” when suddenly, the door close to him beeped. Yuta dove away and a second later, Sparrow came in and trotted down the stairs, pulling off his mask and saying, “I got it.”

“Good,” said Ahn, who had stood up. “Give it to Four.”

Yuta bent his head around the cabinets and watched as Sparrow tossed what looked like a bundle of wire to Kinetic. Yuta recognized the coil of suppressor threads from the bank. They were wound around a fist-sized spool. Kinetic didn’t lift his hand, just opened his fingers and drew the coil to himself out of the air.

“No more improvisations, One,” Ahn was saying to Hypnos. Her head bobbed. He went on talking, but Yuta didn’t fully hear the words, because he’d noticed movement at the door again—movement which, upon closer inspection, proved to be a hand holding the door ajar. As Yuta watched in horror, the door slivered open and Taeyong’s face peered through it.

Yuta, thinking Taeyong had already seen him, gestured at him to go back, turn around, close the door. Taeyong’s eyes focused on Yuta. He waved. Yuta shook his head and made a pushing-away motion.

“Six minutes and then take him upstairs,” Yuta heard Ahn say. Taeyong, meanwhile, was inching the door open and crawling through it. Yuta made a big X with his arms. It was too late. Taeyong was already through the door and creeping to Yuta’s side.

“No!” Yuta hissed under his breath. “Go back!”

“What’s happening?” Taeyong breathed.

“Shh! How did you even get in here?”

“I texted you, I followed someone—”

“Not _here_ here! Empathy Tower!”

“I just went in! There was a garage door that opened when I pressed a button!”

Yuta made a _“shush”_ sign with his finger and peeked around the railing. “…cameras 12 and 13,” Ahn said. Kinetic had seen Yuta. Their eyes met, and Kinetic shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“What’s going on?” said Taeyong, trying to look over Yuta’s shoulder.

“Tae, be quiet.” Kinetic had lowered his eyes. Hypnos and the Hammer were facing away from Taeyong and Yuta, but Kinetic could see them straight on, and Sparrow would notice them if he looked upward. Ahn Han Geun was still gesticulating. He put his hand on the Hammer’s shoulder. “It’ll be a very small window, but you’ve gotten through smaller. Questions?”

“No sir,” said the Hammer.

“No sir,” said Hypnos.

“No,” said Kinetic.

Ahn Han Geun looked at Sparrow.

Taeyong whispered, “Yuta, why…why is Sicheng…”

Yuta put a hand out and Taeyong stopped as Ahn Han Geun said, “What’s wrong?”

There were a few seconds of silence. “I’m worried, sir,” Sparrow said.

“About what?” Ahn Han Geun said very gently.

Sparrow said hesitantly, “I—I think—the target is a…good person, sir.”

“I see,” Ahn said. “You’re a good person too, Five.” He looked around at them. “All of you are. That’s why you’re a part of this. You’re doing what you have to do for the good of Neo City. You’re doing it for the good of the island.” Ahn went closer to Sparrow and lowered his voice. “You’re doing it for your team.”

Sparrow nodded silently.

“You’d never let down your team, would you, Five?”

Sparrow shook his head.

“Answer me.”

“No, sir.”

“No.” Ahn straightened up. “Because without your team, you’re nothing. And if you abandon them like Three did, you’re worse than nothing, and you’ll pay for it, the same way Three will.”

Sparrow didn’t look at Sicheng, but Hypnos did, and her eyes were cloudy. “Yes, sir,” said Sparrow.

Ahn scuffed Sparrow’s head in an apparently affectionate gesture. “Very good. I’ll see you all in the morning. No mistakes. No loose ends.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ahn went out of sight, and a door somewhere on the lower level opened and closed. As soon as it did, Hypnos whipped around and said, “Lecturing me about wasting time and then making us wait for extra suppressor threads? Seriously?” and Yuta pulled himself and Taeyong back from the railing, out of her line of sight.

“Yuta,” said Taeyong urgently, his eyes wide.

Yuta shook his head slowly as the others muttered downstairs.

“Why is Sicheng…like that? Why are there five of them?” Taeyong said.

“Taeyong,” Yuta whispered, “you gotta go, seriously.”

Just then there was a shout, and Yuta and Taeyong looked around the cabinets just in time to see Sicheng, hands still bound, snatch the coil of suppressor threads from Kinetic and roll behind him while Sparrow and the Hammer moved for them. The Hammer veered away, avoiding colliding with Kinetic, and Sparrow stopped across the room, having moved almost too fast to see. He held the coil in his hands.

It was a moment before anyone in the room realized that Sicheng had wrapped the thread around himself and Kinetic, and he was holding it tight around Kinetic’s neck. Kinetic’s hand scrabbled at the thread. His mouth was moving, but there was no sound.

Hypnos was the first to speak. “Stop it! You’re choking him!”

“All three of you,” Sicheng said, “stand together and tie it around you.”

He sounded as if his throat were coated in sawdust. Kinetic wheezed out a few syllables, and Sicheng drew the thread tighter.

“Sicheng,” said the Hammer, “he’s not getting any air.”

“Then you’d better do what I told you,” said Sicheng.

Sparrow took a few hesitant steps towards Hypnos with the coil. The Hammer held out a hand to stop him.

“Now,” Sicheng said.

“Kun’s bleeding!” said Sparrow, looking to the Hammer.

“Sicheng, seriously,” said the Hammer, with a little less bravado than before.

A smile like a grimace splashed across Sicheng’s face, and in it, Yuta saw something break. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

Kinetic’s hands had fallen down to his sides. The blood was pounding in Yuta’s ears so hard it hurt. “Let go!” said Sparrow.

Hypnos said, “You’re going to kill him!”

“Oh, so now we care if someone dies?” Sicheng said half-hysterically.

“Johnny, Kun’s not moving!”

The Hammer shouted, “Let him go, Sicheng, that’s your fucking family!”

“Family?” Sicheng laughed. “ _Family?_ He just pushed my family off a roof!”

Yuta stood up and screamed, “SICHENG! STOP!”

Everything stilled. Sicheng looked up. Kinetic fell onto his hands and knees. Sicheng’s eyes found Yuta clinging to the railing, and his face opened, and his gaze cleared.

“Yuta,” he said.

The word was barely out of his mouth when the Hammer knocked him over. Yuta bolted to the stairs. The Hammer was bellowing at Sicheng and Hypnos was screaming Kinetic’s name as Yuta vaulted over the railing at the bottom of the steps.

“Stop!” Yuta screamed when he saw the Hammer hitting Sicheng, and then he spotted the spade on the ground under an enormous blue screen with a map or blueprint on it. Yuta scooped the spade off the floor and charged the Hammer, screaming like a banshee, as Kinetic threw off Hypnos and Sparrow and got to his feet.

Yuta jumped onto the Hammer and brought the blunt side of the shovel down on his head. The Hammer stopped pounding Sicheng long enough to bat Yuta away like a fly. Yuta fell to the ground. As he rolled over, a table flew across the room at the Hammer and slammed into him.

“Kun?”

“KUN!”

Sparrow was looking at Kinetic with a dazed expression. Hypnos was already charging at him. Yuta put his head down and dashed to where Sicheng lay, and he heard something slam behind him as he dropped to his elbows.

“Yuta,” said Sicheng.

He was struggling to sit up. His face was bloody. “I’m here, I’m here,” Yuta panted, patting at his head and shoulder gingerly.

Sicheng touched Yuta's face. “You’re here.”

“He saved me,” said Yuta. Sicheng’s nose was smashed and pouring blood, but his eyes were alert—his skull must not be damaged. “Kinetic. Kun. He caught me. Sicheng, are you hurt anywhere? Else?”

“I’m okay,” said Sicheng.

“Yuta!” Kinetic shouted.

Yuta turned to see Kinetic, one arm shaking as he pressed the Hammer against the wall with the table, duck Hypnos and throw a small object Yuta’s way. Yuta caught it without thinking. It was Sicheng’s blowtorch.

“Yuta, the threads,” Sicheng said over the sounds of several filing cabinets crashing down behind them.

Yuta looked to Sicheng’s tied hands. “Now? I’ll burn your hands!”

“It’s okay,” said Sicheng, “you’re good at treating burns.”

“I don’t even know how to…”

“Hold it on your palm and press the lever with your thumb,” said Sicheng.

Yuta did as he said, finding the lever. Sicheng angled his wrists away from his body. Yuta said, “Hold still,” and applied the lightest pressure he could manage to the button. A little lick of flame purred out of the valve, and it crept along the threads around Sicheng’s wrists.

“Sicheng, your clothes—”

“Almost.”

As he finished the word, the bundle of threads parted and flailed red, then crumbled. Sicheng clasped his own wrists. “Thank you.”

“You’re bleeding like an industrial-grade sprinkler,” Yuta said as Sicheng rose from the ground.

“Yuta, they’re going to do it,” Sicheng said. “They wanted to make it look like it was me. Something’s starting at 1:25, I don’t know what, but he’s going to die.”

“We can stop them!” said Yuta, pulling out his phone. “I, I have them on tape! I don’t know what I have, but I was recording!”

Sicheng looked at the phone screen and said, “It’s 1:18, I have to…”

Sicheng stopped short, and Yuta turned around. Taeyong stood between them and a door. He had the spade in his hand, and his elbow was bent, as if he weren’t sure yet what to do with it.

“Yuta?” said Taeyong.

Yuta stepped forward, and Taeyong raised the spade.

“Tae,” Yuta said while Sicheng moved in front of him, “Tae. It’s okay. Sicheng, move. Taeyong, put that down.”

“You lied,” said Taeyong.

“Okay,” said Yuta, holding out his hands, “yes, I lied about Sicheng behind Kinetic. But Taeyong, this isn’t what you think. The NSB is trying to—”

“Are you Pyro?” said Taeyong, voice rising.

“ _Me?_ ” said Yuta. He glanced at the blowtorch in his fist and back to Taeyong. “No! No, I mean, I know how this looks—”

Sicheng threw an arm around Yuta and yanked him backwards just as a filing cabinet came crashing through the air and into the wall. The Hammer was shouting at Kinetic, hurling objects through the air like toys while Kinetic deflected them. “So that’s it? Him over us? The person who betrayed you over the people who never let you down?”

“We don’t have to fight!” Kinetic yelled back, slowing a box that the Hammer had tossed. “We can stop all this—”

The Hammer shook Sparrow’s hand off his shoulder. “And throw away everything we’ve worked for our entire lives? For _him?_ ”

The door behind Taeyong opened. Taeyong jumped to the side as Ahn Han Geun stepped into the room, barely sparing the three of them a glance before his eyes landed on the Hammer and Kinetic exchanging heavy objects. Sicheng’s hand grasped Yuta’s shoulder, pulling him back against a shelf.

“Sicheng,” said Yuta, “your face.”

Sicheng’s eye and lip were swelling, and his nose was a mess. He put his hand on Yuta’s cheek. “I have to go help the president, okay? Get your friend and go get help.”

“I’ll come with you!”

“No. You have to get Taeyong out of here. Give me the torch.”

Suddenly Yuta saw Hypnos behind Sicheng. In a moment of panic, he shrieked “Watch out!” and shoved Sicheng to the side. Sicheng fell backwards over a table. Hypnos let out a gruff scream, swinging for Yuta, who crouched. When they both looked for Sicheng, he was gone.

“One! Find Three!” Ahn Han Geun yelled from the other side of the room, where he was standing at a panel of buttons under the blue screen. The panel appeared to have been partly smashed by a box whose paper contents were spilling out over the floor. Yuta looked up for the first time at the screen.

It was an overhead map of a building, and blinking points were moving through it—a cluster here in the lower left-hand corner, jumping erratically; a few points dotting the center; and one, labeled “ _TRGT(1)_ ,” motionless on the upper right. As the cluster shifted, the dots’ labels went in and out of sight. “ _MCY1(B5)_.” “ _MCY3(B5)_.” “ _MCY4(B5)_.”

“MCY,” Yuta whispered, “target,” and he slipped the torch into his sleeve and raised his phone to take a picture of the screen. As he did, Ahn Han Geun looked right at him. Yuta’s camera clicked, and Ahn pointed at him.

“Five!” Ahn screamed. “Get that phone!”

Sparrow turned to Yuta. Sicheng was pinned on the floor under Hypnos, and Kinetic had summoned a whirlwind of objects around him that the Hammer was battering through. Sparrow shouted, “Joy!”

Yuta said, “KUN!”

Sparrow tossed the coil of suppressor threads to Hypnos. She rolled halfway off Sicheng to catch it, but it swerved in the air towards Kun’s outstretched hand. Then the Hammer hit Kun, sending him sprawling to the ground, and the coil sailed past both of them to clatter onto the floor at Taeyong’s feet.

Taeyong picked it up. At the same time, Sparrow bowled Yuta to the ground, grabbing for the phone, and Ahn Han Geun said from Taeyong’s other side, “Give that coil to me.”

“No!” screamed Yuta. He kneed Sparrow in the thigh, and Sparrow kicked him. “Taeyong! Don’t give it to him!”

“I need that to protect the city,” Ahn Han Geun said.

“Don’t listen to him! He wants to kill the president!”

“Ridiculous,” said Ahn calmly while Sparrow punched Yuta in the mouth. Taeyong was standing very still, looking at Yuta fearfully.

“Taeyong!” Yuta tried to heave Sparrow off him. “Trust me!”

Sparrow trapped both of Yuta’s wrists in his hand and knocked the phone out of Yuta’s grip. Yuta grappled for it, but Sparrow was faster. He rolled over Yuta and ran to Ahn in half a second, handing off the phone.

Ahn pocketed it, stretching his free hand toward Taeyog. “The coil.”

Yuta staggered to his feet. “No! Give it to me!”

Yuta lurched at him, and Taeyong stepped away. Then he handed the coil to Ahn.

“Taeyong,” Yuta said.

“One,” Ahn yelled, lunging to Hypnos, “take care of Three!”

Hypnos took the coil from Ahn, and Sicheng’s eyes widened, and then Yuta couldn’t see him anymore. Ahn Han Geun whipped around and roared, “Five, go secure the target! Two! Help One!”

The Hammer turned away from Kun. Sparrow was over their heads and atop the stairs in two leaps, disappearing through the door on the walkway. Yuta looked around for Taeyong. Ahn was pulling him to the control panel in front of the enormous screen and bending over it, one hand closed around Taeyong’s arm.

“Taeyong!” Yuta shouted over the noise, but then Kun was skidding to a stop next to Yuta, grabbing his shoulder. Yuta shied away, and Kun said, “Yuta! Go after Jaemin!”

“What?”

“The president is locked in room 106 on the first floor.” Kun was pointing behind him at the map. “A fire is going to start there in five minutes. Jaemin knows the code to unlock the door. He’ll tell you.”

“Me?” said Yuta.

“I have to help Sicheng and your friend,” said Kinetic. “Jaemin doesn’t want to do this. You can stop him. He’s supposed to make sure the fire kills Moon. Tell him it’s over, there’s no point in Moon dying now.”

“Okay,” said Yuta, “okay.”

“Five minutes,” said Kun and ran for Sicheng, who was struggling in the Hammer’s grip, leaving Yuta to dart for the door and push through it.

Yuta broke into a run as soon as he came into the hallway. He found a staircase that led up the east side of the tower, where he thought or hoped room 106 was, and his legs were burning by the time he reached the ground level. When he emerged from the stairs, he found himself in a sleek, well-lit lobby with an abstract mural covering one wall. The eastern entrance hall. It was empty, and he powerwalked through it as fast as he could to the hallway on the other side.

As he left the lobby, he felt in his pocket for his phone to check the time. Of course—both his phones were gone. All he had now was the torch, tucked into his sleeve like a hidden dagger, and the rapidly fading memory of the map in his head. He’d hoped to find a hallway leading left at some point, but he was starting to understand that the map had been a composite of more than one floor, and what he’d seen didn’t match with the floor plan of the ground level.

Yuta heard murmuring, and music, and a moment later he passed a doorway opening into an enormous arching hall, gold with low spangling lights and sweeping curtains. There were people inside. He put his head down and kept walking. How were there still people at the gala? It was past one in the morning. There was a whole melee happening four floors down. He passed another door into the grand hall, and another, and realized with a wave of unease that this place would probably be in flames in a few minutes. Should he go inside and tell people to get out? Scream fire? Make everyone leave?

“Hey, buddy,” said a voice, and Yuta whirled around. A young person in a suit and heels was leaning out of one of the doorways. “Are you all right? You need help?”

Yuta was confused—did he look so visibly distressed that someone would stop him to ask if they could help?—until he remembered the pain of Sparrow hitting him. He touched his split lip. Fuck, there was blood all down his front.

“Oh yeah, yeah,” said Yuta, cupping his hand over his mouth, “yeah, I’m on my way to the medical…room. I’m fine. Thanks.”

“No problem,” said the person doubtfully.

Yuta waved with his free hand. Then he shouted, “Wait! What time is it?”

They looked at their watch. “1:23?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Thanks! Thank you!” Yuta called, and hurried away down the hall. The rooms on his right weren’t numbered. Where even was he? The open doors on the left leading into the grand hall stopped. Closed doors now, and still no numbers on them. He must be getting close soon. He was considering just opening a door and walking into it when he came around the corner, and suddenly, there were numbers. 114. 112. He started to run. A small hallway broke off from the larger one. Past it: 104. He dipped back into the small hall, followed it past 108, and heard another voice.

Yuta turned again and found Sparrow saying the words “I’m sorry” before closing the door to room 106.

“Hey,” said Yuta.

Sparrow froze.

“Is the president in there?” Yuta said.

Sparrow’s hand was still on the doorknob. His mask was on. It was a second before he said, “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s not that bad,” said Yuta. “It’s okay. Ahn’s fucking scary, I would have punched me too.”

Sparrow didn’t move for several seconds. Just as Yuta went to move closer, Sparrow darted forward. Hot blue flame peeled out of the torch in Yuta’s hand, and both of them jumped back.

Yuta wasn’t sure if his instinct had caused his thumb to press down, or if it was only nerves. He stood still while the fire slithered up the wall and burned out. He breathed, removing the torch from his sleeve.

“Tell me the code to the door,” said Yuta, “and I’ll get him out. You can go back downstairs and pretend you never saw me.”

Sparrow hesitated.

“What’s your name again?” Yuta said. “Jaemin? Right?”

He didn’t say anything. Suddenly, he reminded Yuta of Sicheng many months ago. Afraid to speak. Afraid even to move.

“We both know you don’t want to do this,” Yuta said. “I heard you saying that Moon’s a good person. If you let him die, you’ll keep that with you forever.”

“I can’t let them down,” said Jaemin in a leaf-thin voice.

“Let who down? Kun? He sent me up here to talk to you,” Yuta said. He did go closer to Jaemin and the door now, and Jaemin didn’t move. “He knows you don’t want to hurt anyone too. But they keep making you, right?” Yuta stopped in front of him. “You don’t have to anymore. He said to tell you it’s over. The team’s done. You can stop.”

Jaemin’s hands hung at his sides now. Yuta’s time was almost up.

“One time, before I knew who Sicheng was, I asked him who his favorite Fighting Four member was,” said Yuta. “And he said you.”

Jaemin raised his head a little.

“And I was like, ‘even if he can’t fly?’” said Yuta, smiling at the memory, “and he said, ‘It’s even better if he can’t fly, because he managed to convince the whole city that he can.’”

Yuta put a hand on Jaemin’s shoulder. When Jaemin didn’t react, Yuta pulled his mask off his head. It came off easily. Underneath it, Jaemin’s eyes were red.

“He never stopped caring about you guys,” Yuta said, trying not to let his voice shake, “he just wanted to do what was right. This is your chance to do the same thing.”

Jaemin blinked at tears, and one of them fell onto his cheek. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. Instead he turned around and punched a number into the keypad on the lock, then pushed open the door.

Immediately, smoke billowed out, and Yuta pulled back, coughing. Jaemin was already going inside. Yuta followed him and saw him kneeling next to a chair, where a haggard President Moon was bound and gagged. The entire back wall of the room was in flames. A lamp, a bookshelf, a long table. Bits of flaming wallpaper were floating down from the ceiling.

Yuta ran to the chair, untying the gag in Moon’s mouth. “Mr. President, uh, hi, sir, my name’s Yuta, I’m here to help…”

“Thanks, Yuta,” said Moon, “now get me out of here.”

“Right,” said Yuta and dropped to the ground next to Jaemin. He grappled at one of the bands tying Moon’s ankle to the chair leg, but its buckle wouldn’t loosen.

“Jaemin,” he yelled, “what’s the deal with these?”

Jaemin was smashing at one of the bands with a paperweight or something that he’d picked up. “Computer controlled. You have to hit a button downstairs to unlock them.”

“ _What?_ ”

“We can crack the locks! But we need more time!”

A shelf collapsed halfway, sending a shower of sparks over their heads, and Yuta said, “We don’t have more time!”

“Carry the chair,” said Moon.

Yuta and Jaemin looked at each other. “We can do it,” said Jaemin.

“Gotta try,” said Yuta.

“Sooner rather than later would be ideal,” said Moon.

“You take that side,” said Yuta, bending his knees, “I’ll get this side. One. Two. Three!”

Together they lifted the chair into the air and ran for the door. Jaemin angled himself through the door first. “Why isn’t a fire alarm or something going off?” Yuta yelled as they heaved the chair into the hallway.

“Because we disabled it!” said Jaemin.

They set the chair down, and Yuta pulled the door shut. “Then able it again!”

Jaemin was pounding the gold paperweight against the strap on the chair leg with all his might. He stopped. “What about Moon?”

“What about all those people at the gala?” Yuta yelled, pointing.

“He’s right. How fast can you get to the alarm system?” said Moon.

Jaemin pushed his hair back off his face. “I don’t know. Thirty seconds?”

“I’ll stay with him,” Yuta said, “go turn on some fucking sprinklers or something.”

Jaemin looked behind Yuta and pointed. There were flames crawling under the door already. “On second thought,” said Yuta, grasping the chair again, “let’s get him a little further away,” and they lugged Moon into the larger hall.

“There,” said Moon, “take me through that door. I know the code for it, it leads to the back of the stage in the grand hall.”

“Here, sir?”

“Yes. 1477.”

Yuta put in the code, and they dragged the chair into the dark room. Jaemin flipped on a light, illuminating the heavy velvet curtains along one side of the backstage area. Yuta could hear the sounds of the gala on the other side of it.

“Here,” said Moon, “this is fine. Jaemin, go sound the alarm, I don’t care which one. And find Byun, let him know what’s happening.”

Jaemin, stopping at the door, said, “Not Byun, sir.”

Moon blinked. “Not Byun?”

“I’ll get Lee,” said Jaemin, “he’s not involved.”

Moon nodded slowly, and Jaemin closed the door behind him. Yuta bent over. “We’re lucky you’re fit,” he panted, adding quickly, “Mr. President.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s Ahn,” said Yuta. “Director Ahn. He wants you dead.”

“Yeah,” said Moon, “I thought so. I meant, what’s happening right now? Who are you? Where’s Ahn?”

Yuta knelt, fiddling with the bands. “Ahn was on B4 the last time I saw him,” he said. “So were the other members of the project team. Kun and Sicheng are trying to stop them. Do you know Sicheng? Three?”

“Yes,” said Moon.

“I’m here for him,” said Yuta.

“Why?”

“Because I’m in love with him.”

Moon’s mouth rounded for a second before he said, “That’s very nice.”

“Mr. President,” said Yuta, “permission to try this blowtorch on these straps,” and Moon raised his eyebrows and said, “Granted,” and Yuta pressed down on the lever. The band turned red. Then it was half-melting, half-crumbling.

“It’s working,” said Yuta excitedly.

“It’s setting this chair on fire,” said Moon.

“Oh, fuck,” said Yuta, releasing the lever.

“Keep going. Hurry,” said Moon.

Yuta brought out another thin flame and said, “I meant to say ‘oh no.’ No disrespect intended.”

“You were right,” said Moon, “fuck,” and he kicked. The band broke, freeing his ankle.

“Fuck!” said Yuta delightedly. Just then, the alarm went off. There were shouts from the grand hall outside. The curtain fluttered. A moment later it was pulled back, revealing a crowd milling in alarm among glittering glasses and tables.

“Your gala guests,” said Yuta.

“Ignore them,” said Moon.

“Fire!” someone shouted, and Yuta looked up. A few people were gaping through the gap in the curtain at Yuta spitroasting the band around Moon’s left arm. When Yuta’s head turned, they scattered.

“Uhh,” said Yuta, “sir…”

“Can you make the flame hotter?”

The wooden arm of the chair was already smoking, and in the grand hall, shouts of “FIRE!” were spreading. Yuta almost said, “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” and then someone said, “ _Pyro?_ ” and the screams doubled.

“Fuck it,” muttered Yuta, and turned the flame up. Moon yanked his arm out of the band, and it snapped.

“Only three more,” said Yuta, running around the chair to burn the band around Moon’s right ankle while guests outside the curtain screamed “Pyro’s here!” and “He’s burning that man alive!” while the alarm blared over them. No one seemed to want to get any closer, until Yuta heard someone scream from the opposite direction, where they’d come from: “There! There he is!”

Yuta looked over his shoulder and saw a lady in a gown standing in the doorway, pointing to him. The person who came through the door next was masked in black.

“There!” screamed the lady again, and the Hammer looked at Yuta with the torch in his hand and said, “You!”

“Shit, shit,” said Yuta.

Moon ripped his ankle out of the band and Yuta scrambled to burn the other arm band, but the Hammer was hauling him up from the floor. Yuta floundered, firing the torch. The Hammer growled in pain and dropped him.

“Johnny!” It was Kun’s voice, and he was calling from the grand hall below the stage. “It didn’t work! Give it up!”

Yuta crawled to the side of the stage. His flailing with the torch must have reached the curtain, because it was going up in flames suddenly. Yuta ran toward the president again, but the Hammer buffeted him back, and he went off the stage onto a white-clothed table full of empty dishes. The table buckled, and Yuta tumbled to the ground.

As he struggled onto his hands and knees, back vibrating with pain, he cast around for a staircase to the stage. But the Hammer wasn’t going for Moon. He was here, suddenly, swiping for Yuta’s blowtorch. Yuta threw himself under the table.

“It was you,” said the Hammer, lifting the table, and Yuta tried to dart under him, but the Hammer seized the back of his shirt. Yuta pressed the lever on the torch, sending a column of flame surging over the Hammer’s shoulder and leaping along the tables. The Hammer dropped him and said, “This whole time.”

“No,” said Yuta, scrambling backwards. The Hammer pulled the burning tablecloth off the table and threw it over Yuta. Yuta rolled away from it, spluttering, and the Hammer blocked his path. “You’ve been helping Sicheng since the beginning, haven’t you? You started him on this fire thing?”

“Dude, you’re way fucking off,” said Yuta, and the Hammer picked him up by the underarm. Yuta pressed the lever on the blowtorch, but the Hammer twisted his arm so the flame went away. Then his fist closed around Yuta’s, and Yuta felt the blowtorch buckle.

“This is all your fault,” the Hammer said, holding Yuta at eye-level with him.

“Johnny, stop it!” Kun cried behind them. Why wasn’t he doing anything? Where was Sicheng? Yuta yelped as the Hammer’s fist closed tighter around his hand. He looked around for help, but the grand hall had emptied of guests, and fire was spreading quickly along the tables.

“You,” whispered the Hammer, face centimeters from Yuta’s, “you ruined everything.”

“I didn’t ruin shit,” Yuta gasped. “You want somebody to blame? Blame Ahn Han Geun. He…he took ten years of your life without asking.”

The Hammer’s fist tightened. Yuta cried out. The Hammer stared at him, and the hand that was holding Yuta’s shook.

“JOHNNY!” shouted Hypnos’s voice across the room. “THE COIL!”

The Hammer barely had time to turn his head before Sicheng leapt on top of him. The Hammer dropped Yuta to the floor, and Yuta looked up to see Sicheng throwing a loop of thread over the Hammer’s head. The Hammer grabbed for him, but his grip didn’t hold. Sicheng kicked the back of his knees, and he crumpled.

“Yuta,” said Kun from nearby, “are you okay?”

Yuta’s eyes swiveled from Sicheng wrapping thread around the Hammer’s arm to Kun crouching next to him. “Yeah,” he said, looking at his bruising hand, “yeah. Are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Kun. “Joy wound a thread around my elbow before Sicheng got the coil from her, I can’t use my abilities. Ahn’s still here somewhere. We have to get everyone out.”

The curtain across the stage had burned almost all the way through. A shred along the top was still hanging. As it burned off and fell, Yuta saw Taeyong running across the stage to Moon. Moon talked at him urgently, and Taeyong took out the dull spade and began to hack at the last band strapping Moon’s body to the back of the chair. As he did, Ahn Han Geun appeared behind them.

“TAEYONG!” Yuta screamed and ran for the steps to the stage.

The last band broke, and Moon rose from the chair just as Ahn Han Geun lunged for Taeyong. Yuta sprinted to them, but the Hammer and Sicheng got there faster, converging on Ahn from either side. In the blink of an eye, Sicheng ripped Ahn off Taeyong and the Hammer shoved Ahn into the flames backstage.

Moon helped Taeyong down off the stage. The Hammer stood still, staring into the fire where Ahn had vanished, and Sicheng pulled on his arm.

“Yuta!” said Taeyong, grabbing ahold of him. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay,” said Yuta, looking up at Sicheng.

“Let’s go,” said Kun. “Joy! Come on!”

Hypnos had run to the edge of the stage and was shouting up at Sicheng and the Hammer. Jaemin stood next to her. Yuta couldn’t hear what she said over the alarm and the fire. Finally the Hammer turned around, following Sicheng and jumping down from the stage.

“Come on,” said Taeyong, taking Yuta’s hand to pull him through the burning room. There were sirens outside. President Moon was waving them through the doors.

When they spilled onto the red carpet on the front steps, they found the street in a chaos of shouting and flashing lights. Moon was being folded up by security, but he pointed at Taeyong and Yuta and said something. Yuta took Taeyong’s shoulder. Taeyong turned to him.

“We’re okay,” Yuta said.

Taeyong smiled. “We’re okay.”

Yuta turned around. The alarm and the sirens seemed to have melted into a single sound. The others were coming outside together—Joy and Johnny on one side, Kun and Jaemin on the other, and Sicheng in the middle. They stood like that at the top step for a long second, no masks, hands on each other’s shoulders, blinking into the red and blue lights.

Sicheng saw Yuta just as Joy and Johnny broke away. Yuta dropped the torch. Sicheng let go of Kun’s wrist and went to Yuta, and they met halfway on the steps, falling into each other’s arms with all the momentum of coming home.

For a moment, that was all there was. The blaring sound. Sicheng. Home.

“You did it,” Yuta said.

Sicheng held Yuta tight. He put his hand on the back of Yuta’s head.

“We won,” said Yuta.

“Are you,” said Sicheng, looking at his face, “are you hurt?”

“No,” said Yuta.

Sicheng pulled him close again. “Thank god.”

Yuta breathed him in. “I love you.”

“I love you,” said Sicheng into his neck.

Red police car lights revolved around them. The middle of the night felt like dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phewww
> 
> what do you think about how it all played out???
> 
> i hope the ooc characters became a little less ooc?? lol @ johnny i'm so sorry johnny would never do any of this
> 
> no tws for the last chapter! <3


	17. Chapter 17

Sicheng’s cheeks were pink in the cold, and his ears had turned scarlet. He had the green scarf that Taeyong had given him for Christmas wrapped around his mouth. His beanie was pulled down tight over his head so Yuta couldn’t see his hair. The sun was soft and hazy on him, and his eyes were holding everything he saw, catching it all in his glow. Every time his gaze moved, it was as if he didn’t want to look away, and the only reason he did was to not miss everything else.

Eventually his eyes came to Yuta, and he blinked slowly. Yuta could feel his smile from underneath the scarf.

“What do you think?” Yuta said, breath condensing in the air.

Sicheng looked out again over the ice floes on the river piled with snow, and the boats further out where the ice didn’t reach. Across the river stood Empathy Tower, its red light shimmering at the top.

“Worth the wait,” Sicheng said.

Yuta grinned. “All twelve months of it?”

“Eleven months,” said Sicheng.

“Eleven?”

“You asked me out in February.”

“Oh yeah.”

It was January now. Six months had passed since the fire at Empathy Tower. They’d been to the river innumerable times since then; it was Sicheng’s favorite place, aside from the apartment, which became their own island some weekends, where they had everything they needed and didn’t have to step outside for anything. But this was the first time it had snowed enough to stick on the ground, and the first time Yuta had been able to fulfill the promise he’d made a year ago to take Sicheng to see the river in the snow.

“You ever think about what would have happened,” Yuta said, “if I hadn’t worked up the nerve to give you my number the day of the library fire?”

“No,” said Sicheng.

Yuta laughed. “Of course you don’t.”

“You would have given it to me the next time,” said Sicheng. “Or later.”

“Yeah,” said Yuta, “true. I was really into you by then.”

Sicheng laughed once, in his chest, a little low giggle. Yuta watched him absorb the sight of the river like a sponge. He loved looking at Sicheng when Sicheng looked at things that made him happy. They did that sometimes at home—caught each other’s eyes and then forgot everything else. It had happened a lot at the beginning, when they were still getting used to being safe, being free, being able to go outside, being able to breathe. They’d look at each other and stop, and it was like nothing in the world was wrong or misaligned or imperfect. Those moments were fewer now, but they were still there.

“So what kind of boat did you settle on for your birthday?” Yuta said.

“Yuta,” Sicheng groaned.

“Should we start off with a little motorboat or jump right to sailboat?”

“Yuta, this sounds less like a joke every time you bring it up.”

“That’s because it’s not a joke!” Yuta said fake-woundedly.

“I swear to god,” said Sicheng, “if you actually waste the money for a boat on my birthday…”

Yuta kicked his ankle and said, “Hey. Not a waste. Nothing’s ever wasted on you.”

Sicheng said grumpily, “I just meant it’s too much.”

Sicheng still hadn’t fully broken the habit of saying things like that. Yuta had noticed Jaemin doing it too—the occasional depreciating comments. Implying their worth was limited. Kun had mentioned one time that “you’re nothing without your team” had been one of Ahn’s favorite things to say. Sicheng didn’t believe that anymore, or at least he said he didn’t, but Yuta still caught the idea hanging onto him sometimes.

Ahn had been pulled out of the fire with third-degree burns the night in June at Empathy Tower, and he’d been in critical condition for a week. Renjun had woken up every day that week and asked, “Did that piece of shit die yet?” To Yuta’s satisfaction, Ahn survived so he could be put on trail and sentenced to life in prison. Taeyong had played a decisive role in that too—he had somehow managed to come out of Empathy Tower with the burner phone that had the recording and the photo on it, which had made it easy for the public prosecutors to convict Ahn of the highest charges. Kun and Jaemin had testified, too, and all together they brought down nearly half of the highest-ranking officials in Neo City. There had been a tense few days where the district attorney wanted to prosecute them for their involvement in the assassination attempt and the other fires. But Moon had pardoned them, getting the courts to arrange a year of outpatient trauma rehabilitation for Kun and Jaemin as well as Sicheng. The president had also offered all three of them jobs on his personal security detail. Kun had accepted. Jaemin had said no and asked if they could get him enrolled at Neo City University. Now he was studying psychology.

Sicheng, meanwhile, was working at the Public Library again. He read a lot. Yuta never knew what book would appear on the coffee table—one day it was a wordy account of the development of the Neo City subway system, the next day a children’s book about jellyfish, the next day a book of poems, the next day Anna Karenina. After they had visited the river for the first time in the summer, Sicheng had brought home a book on boats. It was mostly the technical stuff—transom, hull, gunwale, rudder. He’d read the book aloud to Yuta one night after Yuta woke up from a nightmare, and Yuta had never heard him so excited about anything.

“You want to learn?” Yuta had asked. “To sail?”

A tremor of hope had passed over Sicheng’s face in the glow of his phone flashlight. “Maybe someday,” he’d said, and turned the page.

Yuta had found a beginners’ sailing class in September to sign up for later that week. They didn’t have one that worked with his nursing schedule, but there was one that Jaemin and Renjun could join between their university classes. Renjun turned out to be terrifically bad at sailing, and Jaemin apparently didn’t have the patience for it, but according to the two of them, Sicheng was a natural. Yuta saw for himself at the end of the month, when the class held a little race at Zero Mile Point under the newly completed bridge. Sicheng had come in second. Renjun and Jaemin tied for last.

“See, here’s your problem with money,” Yuta said. “You measure everything expensive in, like, how many months’ rent it is. Or how many weeks’ worth of groceries it could buy. You should measure stuff in how much _happiness_ it could bring. How much happiness does anybody get out of groceries? Very little.”

Sicheng scoffed and laughed at the same time. “Very little? From groceries? You sound like a rich person.”

“First of all,” said Yuta, “how insulting. Second, here’s an example. You didn’t want to buy this hat, because you said I could use that money to buy a week of coffee for myself and not have to get up early to make it at home. But how much joy have you gotten out of this hat? Be honest.”

Sicheng gave him a flat look and Yuta said, “Don’t lie! You love this hat!”

SIcheng rolled his eyes. “I love the hat.”

“See? We’ve gotten way more happiness from this hat over three months than a week of sleeping in would have given me. Plus,” said Yuta, “if I’m up earlier, sometimes I get to watch you sleep, which is an activity I cherish dearly, so your original point was kind of moot, if well-intended.”

Sicheng was suppressing a smile. “You’re doing your hospital voice.”

The hospital voice, Sicheng claimed, was a mixture of dry jokes and lecturing. Yuta hadn’t ever noticed he had a hospital voice before Sicheng had pointed it out. “And if I am? I’m still right. The boat would pay for itself in good vibes. Do you have any idea how much I’d love to have a sailor boyfriend to sail me up and down the river while I lay on the deck in my swimsuit, sipping champagne and looking pretty?”

Sicheng ran his yellow mittens along the railing, watching the pileup of snow tumble off. “You would look pretty on a boat.”

“I know I would. I’d look gorgeous. Sun on my skin,” said Yuta, “wind in my hair,” and Sicheng laughed and pulled down his scarf to kiss the corner of Yuta’s mouth. Yuta kissed him again, and Sicheng said as they broke away, “Although I don’t know where you plan on finding money for champagne after we’ve just bought a boat.”

“DID YOU JUST AGREE TO BUYING THE BOAT?” Yuta said.

Sicheng made an exasperated noise.

“I have you on record,” said Yuta.

“I didn’t say…”

“You were using the present tense, not the conditional.”

“We can save,” said Sicheng. “Together. For a used one. No extravagant birthday surprises.”

Yuta blew his lips in a raspberry and said, “All right. That’s good enough for now.”

They watched the ice floes drift downriver. It was a Sunday, and though the park was full of families and couples, the sounds were muted by last night’s snow. Yuta and Sicheng’s line of footprints to the fence were the only ones nearby. Yuta loved moments like these. When they were out, but still alone together. Being out in public had been strange before. There had been a few weeks where everyone seemed to recognize them. Someone at the gala had gotten a photo of Yuta taking a blowtorch to the president’s chair, and for twelve hours it had circulated online under tags like “Pyro revealed” and “Pyro secret identity.” By the time Moon and the police talked to the Neo City Press to sort that out, the photo of the five unmasked team members emerging shoulder-to-shoulder from Empathy Tower was going viral, and news outlets were reporting that the Fighting Four had a secret fifth member. Of course, corrections were run and the real story was printed, and then the city was distracted by the trials of Director Ahn, the mayor, the police chief. But even after that, people still whispered and pointed when they saw Sicheng and Yuta on the street. Then in July, Moon had called them all into the Capital Building for a big televised ceremony where he handed out medals of honor to Sicheng, Kun, Jaemin, Yuta and Taeyong for extraordinary bravery in defense of their country, and the media called them heroes for a day and then everyone forgot about them entirely, except for the occasional patient at the hospital who would ask something like, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who set Empathy Tower on fire to save the president?”

That was five months ago. Now they didn’t get any second glances on the subway, double takes in the mall, turning eyes at restaurants. They were just two people out of the eight million on the island, going about their daily lives. Their normal lives.

Of course, things weren’t completely normal. They both had bad dreams, and Sicheng still dropped things or disappeared momentarily at loud noises, especially when someone knocked on the apartment door when they weren’t expecting anyone. And things could never be completely normal when you had a friend who, instead of asking you to pass the salt, would summon the salt with his mind so it flew across the table with no warning. But those things were little compared to the harmony of moments like this, standing next to Sicheng in the snow at the edge of the river as the sun went low.

“I uh,” said Sicheng against the quiet.

“Hm?”

“I thought I saw Johnny on the way out of work earlier,” Sicheng said.

Yuta blinked and he shifted closer to him.

“He was,” Sicheng went on, “holding a book. But he was looking up at me. His hair was different. It was brown. I only saw him for a second because I was walking past the stacks.”

“Did you…?”

Sicheng shook his head. “When I went back, he was gone. I’m not even sure if it was him.”

Joy and Johnny had disappeared after Empathy Tower. No one could find them. People on talk shows said that they had probably gotten off the island and were somewhere in mainland Esem. Sicheng had wanted to track them down, but Kun convinced him not to try. That had been the last Yuta had heard about them. For a month, Jaemin had the picture of the five of them outside Empathy Tower as his phone background, until he replaced it with a picture of him and Renjun. Yuta assumed he and Sicheng and Kun had talked about it amongst themselves at some point. Yuta himself was always afraid to bring it up.

“Do you hope it was him?” Yuta said.

Sicheng bit his lip, squinting into the orange light reflecting off the river. “I don’t know. I hope he’s okay. But I also…”

“You also?”

“He let Kun hurt you,” Sicheng said. “Or pretend to hurt you. And so did Joy. I know they did it because they hated me, and they were hurting, but sometimes I get so…I can’t forget about it.”

Yuta put his head on Sicheng’s shoulder, and he felt Sicheng’s soft hat lean onto him.

“You forgave Jaemin for that,” said Yuta, “a long time ago.”

Sicheng’s breath stuttered a little. “He said sorry.”

There had been a lot of sorrys. Sicheng, for going to Empathy Tower without Yuta, Taeyong for not trusting Yuta, Yuta for lying to Taeyong, Kun and Sicheng and Jaemin for all hurting each other. For a day or two, it had seemed like the sorrys would never stop, but then they did.

“If it was Johnny at the library today,” said Yuta, “it sounds like he’s sorry. Maybe he’s waiting for the right time to tell you.”

Sicheng took another shuddering breath. Yuta held his waist. Sicheng put an arm around his shoulder.

“Do you think he and Joy stuck together?” Yuta said.

“Probably,” Sicheng said. “They wouldn’t get by without each other.”

“Were they together like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like boyfriend girlfriend?”

Sicheng snorted. “Don’t say that any louder, Joy will materialize out of the air and dropkick you.”

“Oh,” said Yuta.

Several seconds passed. Sicheng’s phone vibrated, and he took it out of his pocket. “Jaemin and Renjun are almost here,” he said.

Yuta laughed. “Now are _they_ together like that?”

“Like what?” Sicheng said again.

Then he said, “Oh,” as Yuta said, “Like boyfriend boyfriend.”

Jaemin and Renjun were a funny pair. Once in July, when Sicheng wasn’t around, Renjun had told Yuta that just because Sicheng didn’t hate Jaemin anymore, that didn’t mean Renjun couldn’t. Jaemin himself had seemed scared of Renjun, and for good reason. Then suddenly, sometime in August, they’d started showing up everywhere together, and by the time the fall semester started at the university, they had become inseparable.

“I don’t know,” said Sicheng. “You’re better at noticing those kinds of things than I am.”

“Just pay attention to the way they look at each other when they show up today.”

“Sure.”

“Have you heard from Kun and Seulgi?”

“No, but they’re always on time. What about your friends?”

Yuta said in mock shock, “Are you implying that my friends are always late?”

“Yes,” said Sicheng.

Yuta laughed sheepishly and said, “Well, to be fair, I’ve conditioned them into being late because I’m always late and they always end up having to wait for me unless they show up late too.”

“It’s okay,” said Sicheng. “I like Mark and Jaehyun. And Yeri. They can be late.”

“But not Taeyong?”

“Oh, well, that goes without saying,” said Sicheng, “he’s in the president’s private jet on the way back from a romantic night on a private island, of course he’s allowed to be late.”

“You think they’re really on a private jet?”

“Well they’re not on the subway.”

“Yeah, but maybe they take a limousine, right? Like when Taeyong went with him to the Zero Mile Bridge reopening and he said there was a minifridge in the backseat.”

“Yuta, they went to a private island for the weekend, remember.”

“Oh, yeah. So private jet I guess. Maybe a helicopter!”

“You should text him and ask.”

“I love that you’re also invested in this private jet thing.”

“I’m invested in anything Two Tae,” said Sicheng.

“You are so fucking hilarious,” said Yuta.

“Didn’t you call them that before? Two Tae?”

“It’s funnier when you say it,” said Yuta, pulling out his phone. He messaged Taeyong asking if he would be on time for dinner that night. Taeyong replied after a few minutes, _LOOK AT THIS VIEW FROM TAEIL’S PRIVATE JET????_

“It’s not a helicopter,” said Yuta with some disappointment, showing Sicheng the bird’s eye view of Zero Mile Point and the river cutting through the island above it.

“Sorry to hear that,” said Sicheng.

_incredible,_ Yuta texted Taeyong. _how was the presidential dick this weekend?_

Taeyong replied, _if i were legally allowed to speak on the president’s dick, *WHICH I AM NOT*, i would say it is as superb as ever. but again…*NOT* ALLOWED TO SPEAK ON IT so! let’s just say i am very much in love and i don’t know how i of all people got this lucky!_

_u of all people?? did u forget that one time u saved his life lmao_

_many thoughts…_

_lmk when ur in district 127 <3_, Yuta said, and Taeyong said, _okayaya_

Yuta put his phone away. “He says he’s very much in love.”

“I really love that,” said Sicheng.

Yuta leaned into him again. “Me too, baby.”

The sun was a dying star gathering dusk and haze around it now. The colors of the ice alternated from pink to gray. The horizon gleamed white. The colors looked soft to the touch. Yuta wanted to hold onto them.

Sicheng said, “Was it like this?”

Yuta had told him, a long time ago, what he’d thought of after Kun pushed him off the top of Empathy Tower. He hadn’t pictured his family or friends or Sicheng, he’d just seen the river in the snow. For that one second, the image of it in his mind had been strangely, sadly perfect.

“Yeah,” Yuta, “it was just like this.”

Sicheng had taken off his mitten. He ran cold fingertips over Yuta’s cheek.

Yuta said, “Maybe I have a superpower too. Maybe I can see the future.”

Sicheng said, “Maybe.”

“Some people have that, you know. A seventh sense. Wait. A sixth sense? Anyway it’s like a muscle you have to exercise to develop or something,” said Yuta. “I read about it online.”

“Mm. What other visions have you had?”

“You being happy forever,” said Yuta, “stuff like that.”

“So you had a vision of you being with me forever,” said Sicheng.

Yuta’s heart twinged. “Would that make you happy?”

“Would it make you happy?” said Sicheng.

Yuta took his own glove off to hold Sicheng’s hand and said, “Yeah. Happier than anything. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.”

Sicheng whispered, “I’m so lucky.”

“Sure,” said Yuta, “but only as lucky as me.”

Sicheng gave him a long kiss. Then he kissed the back of Yuta’s hand and laid his cheek against it like a cat and said, “Love you too.”

“You’re so cute,” said Yuta.

“Any other visions of the future I should know about?” said Sicheng.

“I had a dream we got a boat a few nights ago.”

“You’re making that up.”

“I’m literally not.”

“Oh my god.”

“Sicheng! Yuta!” called voices from behind them, and they turned around. Renjun and Jaemin were at the top of the hill, haloed in pink light, waving. Sicheng waved back.

“Remember,” Yuta said out of the corner of his mouth, “watch how they look at each other,” and Renjun, who had started to run down the hill, tripped and tumbled into the deep snow headfirst. Jaemin's eyebrows shot up and his mouth opened wide. He trampled through the snow to help Renjun up, and Renjun, laughing, held out his arms only to yank Jaemin down into the snow with him.

“Oh, yeah, I see it,” said Sicheng as Jaemin threw snow in Renjun’s face.

“It’s just classic,” said Yuta.

As Jaemin chased Renjun down the slope and snowballs began flying, none of them noticed the pink light leaving the ice or the glow on the snow going dark as the sun went below the horizon. These days, endings didn’t really feel like endings. Mostly they just felt like beginnings, like Empathy Tower’s evening lights going up and illuminating the river behind them, or the moon bringing out the stars overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~~the end~~~!!!!!!!!!
> 
> we're finally finished!!!!!! thank you so much for reading!!!!
> 
> one more time i want to thank everyone involved in the fest, especially the mods and my lovely prompter (i hope the fic wasn't too angsty!!) and everyone who sent me support while i was writing!! and thanks to You for reading :) it means so much that you made it this far if you did! i hope it was worth the time you took!! 
> 
> feel free to leave a comment with any thoughts you've got on your mind! you're also welcome to send me a message at @mfalfanclub on twitter, i would LOVE to hear from you!!!
> 
> thank you again for reading and i hope that you have a great day! if it's not great, remember that tomorrow could only be better <3 stay safe & beautiful!!


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